By Gordon MacDonald. Thirty years ago, when real estate in this part of New Hampshire was cheap, my wife, Gail, and I purchased an old farm and called it Peace Ledge. During the 1800s the land’s valuable timber had been clear-cut and transformed into pasture where enormous work-horses could be bred and raised. Then around 1900 the farm went belly-up, was abandoned, and, after seventy years, became a forest again.
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By Lynn Heatley. Many times in my own life and as I have ministered to others, I have seen huge offenses towards God arise because of places of pain and God being One who was perceived to have done nothing to stop such pain from occurring.
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By Lynn Heatley. I have been pondering the work of sanctification in our lives (sanctification is a big word that basically means the work/ongoing process of the Holy Spirit in our lives that brings our whole nature into being more and more like Jesus). As I have pondered this, I have thought of how so many seemed to have gotten stuck in this whole life process in their understanding and consequently, in their lives. And the “getting stuck” seems to be centered on two words: Receiving vs Earning.
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By Lynn Heatley. In this section, I would like to speak on the nature and overflow of the love of God and how it is an essential aspect in the ministry of reconciliation. In the twelfth chapter of the first book of Corinthians, Paul speaks of the value of spiritual gifts and how all the gifts are needed to have a wholeness that reflects the nature of Christ. He then transitions into the next chapter by calling his readers to a higher place; a place of understanding of how love is more important than any particular gift. He summons us to come up higher to a broader place of understanding and lifestyle: “And now I will show you the most excellent way”. We will benefit greatly as we follow the Lord in this call to a more excellent way.
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By Lee Brase. Several years ago, God urged me to develop a deeper prayer life. I chose as my mentors the praying people of the Bible. Their words gave me a language for my own prayers. They also taught me other valuable lessons. One of them was the need to listen to God–to wait on Him–before and as I pray.
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by Ken Sande. The Bible provides us with a simple yet powerful system for resolving conflict. This system is summarized in The Peacemaker’s Pledge. These principles are so simple that they can be used to resolve the most basic conflicts of daily life. But they are so powerful that they have been used to mediate and arbitrate bitter divorce and child custody actions, embezzlement situations, church divisions, multi-million dollar business disputes, malpractice lawsuits, and terrible sexual abuse cases. These principles are briefly discussed below.
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By T. Austin Sparks. “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.” (Matt. 11:16)… “These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended.” (John 16:1)
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by N. Anderson. The more you reaffirm who you are in Christ, the more your behavior will begin to reflect your true identity! This is a summary from Neil Anderson’s book “Victory Over the Darkness”.
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