The Bible Story Family

  “Work out your own salvation...for it is God which worketh in you.” (Phil. 2:1-13) How can spiritual growth be both a work of God and the work of a believer? Imagine that one of the items on your bucket list has been to see the Rocky Mountains. You have longed for that experience, and the desire has finally been fulfilled. The mountains have come into sight. Now what? Since you are in the mountains, you can now enjoy the visit in a variety of ways. You can hike mountain trails, ski mountain slopes, photograph mountain beauty, sled down mountainsides, drive over mountaintops. You can hunt, fish, snowboard, swim, rock-climb, explore, and go four-wheeling, simply because you are in the mountains. All of these exercises are possible because of the experience of being in the mountains. Experience enables exercise. At the same time, your exercise increases your appreciation of the Rockies. You enjoy your visit all the more because you have skied, hunted, hiked, photographed...

  On November 12, 2021, Don Hopper rode his bike for thirty miles after work, a customary practice.   That evening he suffered sudden cardiac arrest. His wife, Becky, started CPR and called 911. At North Memorial Hospital they started hyper-thoracic therapy and prepared to insert a stint into his left coronary main artery.   And then on Sunday, it happened again, another cardiac arrest. This time the doctors began to prepare him for a pacemaker and defibrillator. Tuesday morning Don woke up just long enough to request a specific defibrillator, one he had been working on for twenty years, which had just been released two months earlier. They implanted the pacemaker and defibrillator on Thursday and by Saturday, the 20 th , he was released from the hospital. “When we work on medical devices,” says Don, “we build them as if they were going to be used by family. We build them so they won’t fail. But I never realized in all those years that I was building it for myself...

  Your creative challenge for 2022 is to master one book of the Bible. 26 steps will lead you to that mastery through the use of “Dare To Walk On Water: The Workbook.”   By the time you have finished you will have done far more than simply read the book and understand the theme. You will apply the truth of every paragraph in the book. You will interact with God, yourself, the world and the church in relationship to the truth you have learned. You will explore and adapt to your own circumstances a creative project for God, one for yourself, one for the world in which you live, and one for the church based on the principles you have studied from the book. You will discover personal ways in which you can offer service to God, use the truth of God’s word to transform your own life, be a positive influence and help to the world around you, and find your place of service in the church. You will want to choose a short book of the Bible, because the challenge is intense....

  One of my favorite museums in all the world is the Winona History Center in Winona Lake, Indiana. The museum includes both a location in Westminster Hall on the Grace College campus and the Billy Sunday home. Dr. Mark Norris serves as the curator. According to Norris, Ma Sunday kept just about everything. It is rare for a historical building not to contain period pieces brought in because the original contents were missing. But in the Sunday home everything is original and items are so varied that not all can be displayed at once. All the furniture is original and they even have the White Stockings Jersey which Billy wore when he played baseball. As the Museum Director, Dr. Norris helps maintain the home and plans the exhibits in the History Center. A recent exhibit featured Youth for Christ when it was headed by Billy Graham and met in the summer at Winona Lake. He is assisted by other coordinators and docents. Mark has graciously provided an endorsement for my novel “Sund...