“O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you’: I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant; for I crossed over this Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and attack me and the mother with […]

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). We live in a world where an increasing number of people do not believe in an eternal hell, a place of everlasting punishment. A frequently asked question is “How could a loving God allow anyone to go to hell?” My problem has always been just the opposite. By that I mean, I have no problem believing in hell. But how could there be such a wonderful place like heaven? How could the love and grace of God be so […]

“Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two” (Matthew 5:41 NKJV). The phrase going the second mile has found its way into our modern vernacular. Its roots are found all the way back in first-century Palestine. The Romans had conquered most of the Mediterranean world. One of the marvels of their conquest was a vast system of superhighways that they had built for travel to and from their conquered territories. There were more than fifty thousand miles of these Roman roads throughout the Empire. At each single mile was a stone marker. These mile markers pointed directions, […]