Devotional

  The first round of incoming fire set a roof ablaze at Camp Nam Dong, an outpost of South Vietnamese forces along with a 12-member U.S. Special Forces detachment near the Laotian border. Within minutes, North Vietnamese fighters were hitting the base hard with mortars, grenades and machine guns. The commanding officer of Team A-726 was a 30-year-old Special Forces captain, Roger Donlon. He was hurled through a door by a blast just after 2:45 a.m. on July 6, 1964.The base was surrounded. North Vietnamese soldiers and allied guerrillas, known to U.S. forces as Viet Cong or V.C., pressed closer…

Ministry In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared. Then Jesus instructed him not to tell anyone what had happened. He said, “Go to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy.…

Social Justice With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? Micha 6:6-8 STORY The war in Europe ended…

God and Country After the opening salvo of the Revolutionary War at Concord, a colonial defeat was looming. Desperate, the Continental Congress issued a call for all citizens to fast and pray, so the God might bless the nation. This vociferous summons could only be issued by a legislature that recognized and professed their faith in God. They were the same delegates who penned the Declaration of Independence. As a nation we recognize the tyranny the thirteen colonies endured under King George III. Having been subjugated, Congress recognized everyone’s “unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit…

New Beginnings When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Gensis 1:1-5 World War I was also called “The Great War.” Most lasting though is the phrase…

Spirituality When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Matthew 10:19-20 STORY Sarah Young was born on March 15, 1946 in Nashville. While she was in graduate school her brother persuaded her to read Escape From Reason, a 1968 book by the evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer. Until then she had been a nominally faithful Christian at best, more influenced…

Pilgrimage Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who is the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 134 STORY The Pittsburgh Pirates had a great baseball season in 1979. The Pirates had 98 wins and 64 losses that year and captured the National League East Division title by two games over the Montreal Expos. The Pirates then beat the Cincinnati Reds to win their ninth National League title, and they defeated the Baltimore Orioles, in the seventh and final game,…

Bible All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV) Devotion In 1874, William Mitchell Ramsey was appointed as the professor of classical art and archaeology at Oxford University. His earlier education centered on the Tübingen School of biblical interpretation. This academic approach to the scriptures maintained that the Book of Acts was composed in the second century, and therefore was not a reliable account of the missionary journeys of Paul as recorded by Luke. Maintaining that Acts was a second century composition, Ramsey…

Christmas Meditation Shortly after the death of his father and little girl in 1851, Charles Dickens reflected on the meaning of Christmas in an essay titled What Christmas Is As We Grow Older. The essay, written in London, was published in Household Words magazine. The essay is a reflection of the meaning of Christmas as a child, “Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all our limited world like a magic ring…” to a mature perspective when “Time came, perhaps, all so soon, when our thoughts over-leaped that narrow boundary…” As we grow older, we realize that Christmas stretches…

Christmas Homily As a young vaudeville actor Bob Hope found himself alone each Christmas. The grueling road schedule prevented him from returning to Cleveland for the holiday. Each Christmas morning Hope would think of his family worshiping at Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church without him, followed by a family dinner of turkey and plum pudding. For the Hope household Christmas was family day, and Bob longed to join them around the hearth. In 1948 Senator Stuart Symington, a Democrat representing Missouri, asked Bob Hope to entertain American military personnel in Berlin with a special Christmas celebration. Never forgetting the loneliness he…