A Sunday school teacher was teaching her kindergarten children about the Golden Rule and the importance of helping others. After telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, the teacher said, “Remember, children we are here to serve others.” With that a little girl piped up and asked, “Then what are the others here for?” Serving is fundamental to our faith. Jesus said, “but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a r ..read more

Greetings From Beverly Hills, FL April is off to a great start with almost 9,000 visitors  accessing our blog site.  While we realize these are small numbers in the big world of blogging and social media, we appreciate everyone’s interest and words of  encouragement so many of you have expressed for our efforts.  If you find these posts helpful, please share them with your friends, family, and brethren. If you’ve missed a post this week, today’s recap with its live links is a good way to catch up.  Also included at the end is a bonus post. Tomorrow we are preaching at ..read more

Melody Hammer Biddle shared this story on Edwin Crozier’s facebook page credited to Mark Twain. I’ve never heard this story before, but apparently it has been repeated in multiple books. A man died and met Saint Peter at the gates of heaven. Knowing that Peter was very wise, he asked a question that he had wondered about his whole life. “He said, ‘I have been interested in military history for many years. Read everything I could, studied it, went to battlefields and walked the grounds. “‘Who was the greatest general of all time?’” “Peter said, ‘Oh, that’s easy. It’s that man right over there ..read more

Nancy Kennedy is a writer for our local newspaper the Citrus County Chronicle. In a her weekly column “Grace Notes,” she recently recounted the story of lady who each year had a personal theme to live by. One year was “The Year of Overcoming.” Another was “The Year of Trusting.” Nancy relates the theme which caught her eye was the one “Your God is too Small.” Now the lady was a Believer in God. She knew He is all powerful. The Creator. The Sustainer. And able to do anything. Yet, she admitted there were times in her life when she made God small by not believing He cared enough about her probl ..read more

Names mean something. For instance in America when you hear the name Patrick Henry, you think of patriotism, heroism, and courage. “Give me liberty, or give me death!” he proclaimed. On the other hand, Benedict Arnold conjurers up thoughts of betrayal, treason and disgrace. In the Bible names are important to God. One’s name often identified some characteristic of the person or event at their birth. For instance, Isaac’s name means “laughing.” Jacob means “deceiver.” Moses, “drawn out.” Names may reflect some aspect of one’s life or character such as “Simon the Zealot,” “John the Baptist, or ..read more

Author and Bible commentator Daniel Lioy tells a story about Marquis de Lafayette, a French officer who provided invaluable assistance to George Washington and the struggling American army. After the war was over, he returned to France and resumed his life as a farmer of many estates. In 1783, the harvest was a terrible one, and there were many who suffered as a result. Lafayette’s farms were unaffected by the devastating crop failures. One of his workers offered what seemed to be good advice to Lafayette, “The bad harvest has raised the price of wheat. This is the time to sell.” After thinki ..read more

Don Graham tells a story about Linda, a young woman, who was traveling alone up the rutted and rugged highway from Alberta to the Yukon. Linda didn’t know you don’t travel to Whitehorse alone in a rundown Honda Civic, so she set off where only four-wheel drives normally venture. The first evening she found a room in the mountains near a summit and asked for a 5 A.M. wake up call so she could get an early start. She couldn’t understand why the clerk looked surprised at that request, but as she awoke to early morning fog shrouding the mountain tops, she understood. Not wanting to look foolish ..read more

“Who says that a picture is worth a thousand words?” asked Dan Chaney, a young radio advertising executive who stood to give a speech in one of Ron Willingham’s classes. Before anyone could answer, Ron recalled Dan’s answer to his own question. “You give me a thousand words, and I’ll take the Lord’s prayer, the Twenty-Third Psalm, the Hippocratic Oath, a sonnet by Shakespeare, the Preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and I’ll still have enough words left over for just about all of the Boy Scout Oath.” “Now would you trade these one thousand words for any picture?” Dan d ..read more

Yesterday’s Solar Eclipse was potentially seen by 31 million people who live in “the path of totality.” Since Florida was not greatly impacted we watched on TV as NASA and excited newscasters tracked it from Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico, to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. The experience provided a refresher in science. We were reminded several times that the Sun is 400 times larger than the Moon, but it also 400 times father away. “The Moon is approximately 240,000 miles from Earth, while the Sun is 93 million miles away. Yet from our view on Earth, the Sun and the Moon appear to be about the sa ..read more

A little boy asked his father what was the highest number he had ever counted to. “Well, I don’t know,” his Dad replied, “ I never thought about it.” Wondering why he asked, his Dad inquired, “What’s the highest number you ever counted to?” Without hesitation he responded, “973. “ ”Well, why did you stop there?” his dad asked. “Church was over,” the little fellow responded. I suspect maybe you have sat through some services like that where your mind was wandering. You weren’t focused. Maybe you weren’t counting, but your thoughts were somewhere else. Thinking about something else instead of G ..read more