Virtually all scholars of antiquity, both Christian and non-Christian, accept that Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure and attempts to deny his historicity have been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.

Every major religious movement considers Jesus to be an important religious figure including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Baha’i Faith and Druze Faith. In addition, some high-level Buddhists have drawn analogies between Jesus and Buddhism.

One of the strongest facts of Christ is that he fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophesies including his death. It has been calculated that the odds of one man fulfilling just 8 of these would 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. This is certainly not fiction.

An enthusiastic admirer is the guy who goes to the football game with no shirt and a painted chest. He sits in the stands and cheers for his team. He’s got a signed jersey hanging on his wall at home and multiple bumper stickers on the back of his car. But he’s never in the game. He never breaks a sweat or takes a hard hit in the open field. He knows all about the players and can rattle off their latest stats, but he doesn’t personally know the players. He yells and cheers, but nothing is really required of him. There is no sacrifice he must make. And the truth is, as excited as he seems, if the team he’s cheering for starts to let him down and has a few off seasons, his passion will wane quickly. After several losing seasons you can expect him to jump off the fan wagon and begin cheering for some other team.

I can honestly say I have never heard anyone say that they wanted to be in the middle of a storm in their lives. I don’t recall ever hearing someone say, “I have things too easy right now and I just want God to put me into a storm so life will not be so easy.”

The truth is that storms are a natural part of life both physically and spiritually. We do not always know when the storms of life may come our way, but you can be assured one will. I once heard it said that you are either about to go into a storm, in the middle of a storm, or coming out of a storm because they are a guarantee of our spiritual walk of life.

April Fool’s Day is observed in most of the countries of the world. Although it is not a formal holiday in any country, it’s a day for jokes, pranks, and hoaxes. On April 1st, people “stretch” the truth and then announce, “April Fools.”

Are we trying to fool the one who loves us the most? Are we guilty of trying to fool God? Are we guilty of trying to keep secrets from God? There’s no fooling God. There is no place we can go where He does not see our every move. Proverbs 15: 3, says: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Those who think they have God fooled are only fooling themselves! God sees all things! He hears all things! Nothing escapes His attention!

“Everyone who makes themselves important will be made humble. But everyone who makes themselves humble will be made important.” Luke 14:11

Admittedly, humility and the humbling of oneself is out of fashion in today’s world and seems unappealing to most of us. However, as Jonathan Edwards said, “We must view humility as one of the most essential things that characterizes true Christianity.” Our perspective on humility can be radically changed if we will ponder and meditate on the greatest example of humility in history: Jesus Christ. By the very act of leaving heaven, coming to earth, and taking the form of man, he demonstrated an unfathomable humbling of himself. Throughout his life on earth, Jesus demonstrated a spirit of profound humility, saying that he came “not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). On his last night with the disciples, he took a towel and basin and washed their dirty feet (John 13:1–11), instructing them to follow his example of servanthood with one another (John 13:12–17). Andrew Murray captures it well, “Christ is the humility of God embodied in human nature; the Eternal Love humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness, to win and serve and save us.”

Time moves so quickly. When you are young, you never give death much thought; then you wake up and you are old. James 4:14 “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” God gives man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends.  “For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.” William Penn

God allows us the choice during this time to live with Him in eternity in Heaven or choose not to. It is through a choice to accept Christ as the only “Way” (John 14:6), “Grasping what the Bible teaches about Heaven shifts our center of gravity and radically alters our perspective on life. Therefore, we should always seek to keep Heaven in our line of sight. Those who know Jesus should realize that death is the gateway to never-ending joy.” Randy Alcorn, founder of Eternal Perspective Ministries

From my teenage years up through my late 60s I diligently did strength training for my physical body. I could bench press 300 lbs. even being an old dude.

We live in a time and culture chasing after strength. The world’s definition of strength and God’s definition are not the same.

The world would define strength as power through our own ability to overcome that which we are almost impotent. Power is sought, looked up to, and praised. It’s taught, emulated, and admired. Media and books tout and idolize strength. Every age, gender, and ethnicity exalt power and debase weakness. The quest for power weaves its influence into strength training, diet, clothing, relationships, and purpose.

None of us like to suffer but every person who has ever lived has suffered. Looking back on my life I have experienced many occasions to be overwhelmed by suffering. A few of these include a neck injury ending a potential pro football career; being on the verge of bankruptcy after the real estate market crashed; our primary profitable business wiped out by COVID; my wife suffering with cancer for 13 years which ended her earthly life after 55 years of marriage; and other current struggles.

All of God’s people who are revealed in the Old and New Testaments have had struggles and suffering including Jesus Christ. So, why does our loving Heavenly Father allow suffering of His loved ones?

Scripture is abundant with tales where adversity does not have the last word; instead, it serves as a catalyst for growth, transformation, and often- unexpected goodness. It emphasizes that even in the midst of trials, there’s always a nugget of hope to cling onto.

Indeed, the Bible encourages believers to view their struggles from an entirely different perspective. Rather than being pointless or punitive experiences, these challenges are opportunities for personal development and deepened faith. This isn’t just about turning lemons into lemonade—it’s about recognizing that every situation serves a purpose in our spiritual journey. God is always working even when you don’t see it.

The evolution of Valentine’s Day has followed a course similar to the evolution of Santa Claus. It began with legends surrounding an obscure saint (actually, there’s more than one St. Valentine) from early Christian history that oddly morphed over the centuries into something else entirely. Then it exploded into a pop culture and commercial phenomenon in Victorian England (thank the Brits for greeting cards, flowers, and “confectionaries”), with the United States quickly jumping on the bandwagon.

Here are 4 facts about Valentine’s Day: (1) The first Valentine was posted around 1806. (2) Almost one billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year on or near February 14 with females purchasing 85% of the cards. This is second only to the number of Christmas cards sent. (3) Americans spent $20.7 billion dollars in 2019 on Valentine’s Day (4) 3 in 10 people don’t celebrate this holiday in America.

Can you imagine nothing? I cannot. I always have to put it into the context of “something”.

A vast number of scientists, astronomers, and cosmologists believe the “Big Bang Theory” was the beginning of our universe with a current estimate of 200 billion trillion stars and planets. (They also put this theory in the context of an understandable “something”.)  

As humans on this planet Earth, we view time from a temporal perspective. Time is what we experience in our daily lives. It’s linear, measurable, and finite. It’s relative and deeply personal. Type A personalities are often time driven, never wanting to be late for anything, no matter how insignificant. Type B personalities are more relaxed and carefree about time; they are not stressed about being late, no matter how significant.

We have an intimate Heavenly Father that trains His kids to become like Jesus.

Earth is God’s training ground for each of us. God uses grace in His training. God’s grace is His unmerited love. Grace means that God showered love and blessing on those who did not in any way deserve or earn it. They deserved His judgment and wrath. But He showed them love.

If I drew a long horizontal line upon which I drew a small dot and asked, “If that is a timeline, what do you think the dot represents?” You might answer that is your life in comparison to human history!”

However, that is incorrect. You immediately may ask, “What else could it be?”

“The line is all of eternity, the dot is human history,”

 “So where is your life?”  “It is just a little tiny speck on the dot, so little one can’t see it.” Counting all the years in the Bible since Creation up to the current time adds up to less than several thousand years which is a very small dot on the line of eternity. Even if your life span on Earth is 100 years, it is a very tiny speck on the dot.

As we start a new year, our rearview mirror can sometimes be our worst enemy. Most of us have an innate tendency to dwell on negative things in the past. Many of those things are a direct result of being hurt by someone else. Those hurts are bumps in our life journey that really jarred us as we went over them. These bumps can become mountains if we continue to look in our rear-view mirror.

We’re all guilty of offending other people, and we’ve all been offended by other people; those are the facts of living in a sinful world. But as Christians we’re told to be forgiving people. It’s impossible to live a victorious Christian life with unforgiveness in our life. It isn’t the offense that destroys relationships, it’s the inability to forgive that destroys relationships.

One more year is now past, and you may be thinking about new opportunities and goals to help you start the new year right. If you’re rolling your eyes at the thought of “New Year’s Resolutions,” let me just state the obvious: There’s nothing significant about January 1 when it comes to goals. There is nothing magical about new year’s resolutions. In fact, research has found that only about 45% of people even make resolutions. (And 35% of those who do quit them before the end of January.)

When I was a youngster, I could not wait to open my gifts under the Christmas tree, especially those from Santa Claus. Since that time, I have come to realize that the best gifts giver is our Heavenly Father. These gifts are by far the most precious in that they are all wrapped in LOVE. These gifts that I have received have also been received by innumerable others throughout history and are God’s good and perfect gifts.

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

We all enjoy the temporal delights of this season with the beautiful decorations inside and outside, family get togethers, gift giving and receiving, the Christmas movies, great food, and other festive things that give us pleasure.

As we celebrate Christmas, do we truly understand the eternal significance of this holiday for each one of us? I did not clearly understand this until God presented to me the exciting Big Picture of the Bible which opened God’s powerful and living Word (Hebrews 4:12) to me.  (An abbreviated version of the Big Picture is below; a more detailed version is available at no cost in both books (written and audio) on the website shoeleatherfaith.com.)

“He may have been a wee little man, but he was the kingpin of the Jericho tax cartel. He was a filthy rich little guy, this Zacchaeus. But when he met Jesus, everything changed — not only his heart, but his hands. The same fingers that once reached to extort filthy lucre, now extended with generosity to the poor, and to pay back fourfold anyone he’d defrauded (Luke 19:8) It’s only a few verses earlier in Luke’s Gospel that Jesus encountered another wealthy man, who we call “the rich young ruler.” His great possessions were the barrier to him following Jesus.

The holiday season often comes with a mix of joy and stress. In her insightful article, 10 Calming Bible Verses to Cope with Holiday Stress, Alicia Searl captures this tension beautifully, reminding us to pause, breathe, and surrender our burdens to the Lord. Her reflections, paired with Scripture, offer a powerful reminder that peace is found not in perfection but in the presence of God.

Here are three ways to anchor yourself in His peace this season: