Have you spent time in a desert?  The desert is a unique place, with challenges you don’t always find elsewhere.  A lack of water is an overarching factor.  We can’t live long without water.  And a result of this lack of water is the difficulty in growing things to eat.  We need food to live also.  And then there’s that darn sun.  In a desert place, like southern Arizona, or Death Valley in Califo...  Read More

I’m a lifelong St Louis Cardinals fan.  During the late 1950’s and into the early 1960’s a real highlight was going with my dad and some of his friends with their sons to St Louis (about 100 miles), eating at a White Castle, then heading to old Sportsman’s Park on Grand Avenue in north St Louis, where the Cardinals played until 1966 when they moved downtown.  But we didn’t go that often.  Much mor...  Read More

Hebrew: The word has a vague origin, thought to come from an ancient word meaning “one from the other side,” (the other side of the river Euphrates).  Abraham was called by God to leave Ur and travel to an unknown place across the Euphrates, eventually called the Promised Land. Those coming from him would be called Hebrews, people from the other side of the Euphrates, and in another way: choosing ...  Read More

Statistics say that only 9% of the people who make New Year’s Resolutions complete them.  In fact, 23% who make resolutions quit before a week goes by, and 43% have quit before the end of January.  The experts say there are four common reasons people fail at these resolutions.The resolution is made as a tradition (like with the new year) instead of when an actual event causing a need occurs that h...  Read More

For those old enough, like me, to remember the old hymns we sang, you’ll remember the song titled “Revive Us Again”.  “We praise Thee O Lord, For the Son of Thy love, For Jesus who died and is now gone above, Hallelujah! Thine the glory, Hallelujah, Amen, Hallelujah, Thine the glory, Revive us Again.”Revival.  We certainly understand the concept.  Our faith has stagnated, grown cold, maybe even di...  Read More

If we heard it once, we heard it 75 times over our 3 ½ weeks riding the bus in Berlin.  Sometimes you could find a seat, but often you had to stand while the bus traveled and as people crammed in.  There were rails and leather straps you could grab.  As we went down the road during our 30-minute trip each day to the library, a recording would come on, “Halten sies ich wahrend der gut fest.”  Then ...  Read More

There will be no typical Cross Point during the 11/26-12/17/23 timeframe while Rexanne and I are in Berlin, Germany running the Connections Library that is part of Open Door Libraries ministry.  What we encourage during that time is to follow our experiences by checking out my blog, and/or by visiting my Facebook page for postings. I plan to post something to my blog once a week, and I’ll have pos...  Read More

It used to aggravate me a lot.  As a young college student in Springfield, MO, we’d go to the mall just to walk around.  Very often one of the students from Baptist Bible College would come up beside you and say, “Can I ask you a question?”  If you took the bait and said, “Sure” then he’d follow with this, “If you died tonight, are you confident you’d go to heaven?”  Many people (me included) woul...  Read More

I don’t know how many times I’ve been a pallbearer at a funeral.  Several.  You lift on the handle that holds the body of someone you knew, you loved, but who has died.  As you walk it out of the church, as you walk it to the burial site in the graveyard, you might ask yourself, “Is this it?  Is this truly the end?”  On reflection, if a Christian, we might ask, “Do we immediately go to heaven?  Is...  Read More

We all know the old song, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And he does. The problem is that often we let that thought overshadow the reality of the spiritual battle going on for our soul. We expect smooth sailing, a love-filled path. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present ...  Read More

In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Dante encounters the gates of Hell as he travels. Above the entrance he sees these words for those entering this tragic place: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.It is an apt description of the environment of Hell. Yet once we reach the gates of this place, we are pretty much already beyond hope. The decisions we’ve made, the life we’ve lived, the faith we’ve p...  Read More

Last week in my Cross Point article I talked about believing like Satan, and that such belief, a mental assent belief, is not enough. Real belief, real faith, is defined by the actions we take.  To say we have made Jesus Lord through faith, but then to refuse to obey him, contradicts faith. We referenced Jesus saying, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and yet do not do what I tell you?”And I made t...  Read More