What God Taught Me Through My Wife’s Cancer

John 1:5 I sat in a cushioned chair beside my wife's hospital bed reading C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain on the morning of August 15, 2002. Honestly, the pain was mine but it was more for my wife's as she lay with bandages, tubes, and a morphine pump to ease the agony of the nine-hour surgery she had...

Heaven’s Anything But Boring!

Heaven confuses many people. Some don't understand much about it. Others are convinced they know all they want to know and have decided they aren't interested. A lot of people think heaven sounds boring with a capital B! Huck Finn said that he thought heaven was...

From Resignation To Recognition

Luke 24: 13-35 Have you ever found yourself living in the days following a great disappointment when something you had been hoping for and praying seemed just about ready to come true, and then suddenly it just seemed to...
child funeral sermon

Child Funeral Sermon: I’ll Hold You Again in Heaven

I'll Hold You Again in Heaven 2 Samuel 12:15-23 Of all deaths, that of a child is most unnatural and hardest to bear. We expect the old to die. While that kind of separation is always difficult, it comes as no surprise. But the death of a young child or a yout

The Hope of Human History

The Hope of Human History (Fifth in a Series) Daniel 2:34-35, 44-45 In the words of Daniel, the dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure. (Dan. 2:45) There is coming a day when this stone cut without human hands will smite the statue at its feet, at the time

Checkmate!

God played chess with the devil. And the pieces were human beings. The devil was ahead until God became one of the pieces. "Check," said the devil at Golgotha. Three days later God replied, "Checkmate!" This Easter message focuses on God's ability to break through any barrier.

Getting the Big Picture

Getting The Big Picture (Lectionary Starters) Epiphany Sunday, Year A January 5, 2003 Ephesians 3:1-12 Jim Killen, a minister of the United Methodist Church, Beaumont, Texas Paul caught a grand vision, and we can catch it too. And, if we catch that vision, it will put everything into a new pe