Your mind is a muscle. It needs to be stretched to stay sharp. It needs to be prodded and pushed to perform. Let it get idle and lazy on you, and that muscle will become a pitiful mass of flab in an incredibly brief period of time. How can you stretch your mind? What are some good mental exercises that will keep the cobwebs away? I offer three suggestions: READ.
Read MoreTag Archives: First Kings
Insight
Are you ready for a surprise? You blink twenty-five times every minute. Each blink takes you about one-fifth of a second. Therefore, if you take a ten-hour automobile trip, averaging forty miles per hour, you will drive twenty miles with your eyes closed. I know a fact far more surprising than that. Some people go through life with their eyes closed.
Read MoreDestination Unknown
Do you know where you are going? The place? Dublin, Ireland. The time? Toward the end of the nineteenth century. The event? A series of blistering attacks on Christianity, especially the “alleged resurrection” of Jesus of Nazareth. The person? Thomas Henry Huxley. You remember Huxley. Devoted disciple of Darwin. Famous biologist, teacher, and author. Defender of the theory of evolution.
Read MoreFriendly—Inside Out
Are you attractive? I’m not referring to external beauty nor facial features. I’m asking if you are attractive—magnetic, winsome, charming, friendly. Listen to Proverbs 18:24a (KJV): A man that hath friends must show himself friendly. Do you see the point of the proverb? To have friends we must be friendly. Friendliness is a matter of being someone . . . more than it is doing something.
Read MoreMantle of Power
Elijah’s no-death contract suddenly went into effect. Elijah, prophet of power—gone. Elisha, prophet of double power—here, ready, and about to be used greatly by his God. When a man or woman of God dies, nothing of God dies.
Read MoreTimes of Searching
Self-denial does not come naturally. It is a learned virtue (often hard-learned), encouraged by few and modeled by even fewer, especially among those who are what we’ve come to know as Type A personalities.
Read MoreStraight Talk
Today, countless people seek to know the future. Newspapers and magazines carry horoscope columns. Television networks advertise psychic hotlines. Bus stop benches boast ads for palm readers.
Read MoreConsistent Heroism
We cannot help but admire Elijah’s consistent heroism. The man is alone, standing before the king and, surely, surrounded by armed warriors, faithful to Ahaziah, who could have finished him off with one thrust of a spear.
Read MoreTwo Solemn Reminders
After recording these dire predictions, spoken by the Lord through Elijah, the writer of 1 Kings gives this commentary on the lives of Ahab and Jezebel: “Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil . . .”
Read More