I was gazing around my office this morning, doing a little daydreaming before I launched into today’s “To Do” list, and I realized that I was surrounded by a lot of stuff. I have a pretty big office, due to the fact that it also holds a small conference table, but it is still full! […]
If you are like me, there are many stories in the Bible that you wish you had more information about. Everything from Adam and Eve in the Garden to Noah to the Walls of Jericho to the Cross, and many more – we’d love to have just a little more information, insight, and descriptions. When […]
Who doesn’t love Spring, at least at the beginning? The bitter cold is gone, along with the snowy, icy, slushy, yucky junk that goes with it! Trees are budding out, birds are singing, and – by the afternoon – you can come out of your jacket! How wonderful is that? I can’t wait for the […]
Growing up without a father around to teach me the things that fathers teach their sons is something that, for me, I see as a blessing. I got to choose my father-figure-mentor to mold my life, and I have been richly blessed to have had some incredible men fill that spot for me. No one […]
Whenever I have been in a discussion with folks about what their most favorite day of the week was, everyone always said Saturday. Some have even said Friday, because it was the end of their work week and Friday night was always a time to stay out or stay up and not worry about having […]
If you have searched my website recently, looking for a new blog, you probably wondered what has happened. I haven’t written a blog in a while and there is a very good reason for it. Last month I began my Manna To Go weekly email devotional that is sent out early every Monday morning. These […]
Manna To Go is a weekly devotional article that I will write and share with anyone who would like to receive it. It will be a short, quick read, that will kick of your week with something thoughtful and inspiring. The plan is for it to go out every Monday, beginning December 17th. There is […]
I haven’t been able to do a blog for the last three weeks. I’ve thought about it many times but there just didn’t seem to be time. In fact, my whole schedule for writing has been seriously altered by simply not having time. I guess I have as much time as I’ve always had but […]
How we see nearly anything in this life depends on the lens we choose to look through to see it. We joke about seeing life through rose-tinted glasses, and we understand that we are saying our perspective colors our view. A similar metaphor is the classic water glass that is half full or half empty, […]
One of the greatest challenges that we all have in studying the Bible is dealing with so many things where we are given only limited information. How many times have you read something in the Bible and wished for just a little more detail, facts, and description? We have already talked about the overriding need […]
I have written and published two books about the working of angels in our world. Yes, they are works of fiction. They are novels about a young man named Matt Zampolos, who is tragically killed as the result of an heroic deed that saved scores of lives. Because of his courage and integrity, he is […]
When I want to truly understand what I’m reading in the Bible, I must first recognize that whatever I’m reading, whatever book, chapter, or verse it happens to be, is there to tell me something about God. The Bible is not literature, law, letters, or legacy. It’s an introduction to God – who He is, […]
If we want to understand the Bible, the first thing we have to do is look for what it tells us about God. As I mentioned in my last blog, that is the first rule of biblical interpretation. It was written to tell us about Him, but if we aren’t looking for it, we’ll see […]
If you were raised going to church and Bible class, you grew up hearing stories from the Bible. You may have even had a Bible Story Book at home or had a nightly Bible story told to you by a parent or talked about in a family devotional. Nothing captures the imagination of children like […]
The most read and most amazing book ever written is the Bible. Hands down! Yet, the range of reactions to the Bible is also probably the most varied and diverse of any book ever written. Opinions about it range from viewing it as fiction, fables, and fantasy on one end to holy, sacred, and totally […]
I always got a kick out of Solomon’s concluding remarks in Ecclesiastes. In a book filled with deep insights into life’s priorities and flowing with wisdom and poetry, he sets up his big finish by slamming the very thing he had just done – writing a book – be it a small one. The very […]
When I opened up the office Tuesday morning, I kept hearing a beep going off every half minute or so. It sounded like a low battery warning from a smoke detector. It brought back bad memories of our smoke detector battery warning in Tennessee that always went off in the middle of the night. I’d […]
This past Sunday I shared a lesson about doubts. We are looking at things that quench or put out the Spirit’s fire in our life, and doubt was at the top of my list. Doubt is a true spirit killer because it is a faith killer and it can turn any joy we have into […]
It has been three weeks since I posted a blog to my website. I haven’t been lazy. I have just been out of the country. We did a twelve day cruise around the British Isles spending time in England, Ireland, Scotland, and one day in France. I could relate so many things about the beauties […]
I remember when I was young and I’d hear about people dying. When they were described as being in their sixties, I thought,”What did you expect? They were old!” Needless to say, I’ve changed my thinking about what constitute “being old” since then. Today I get to celebrate and thank God for bringing me into […]
I am terrible at proof reading my own stuff! That is more than a confession it’s an obvious proclamation to anyone who has read my writing over the years. One of the most miserable feelings in the world is to be incredibly proud of something you have written, and you breathlessly await affirmation from people […]
I don’t normally reprint my article from our Sunday morning bulletin, but I wanted this one to be seen by more than just my members. From Mike: I’m writing this on Tuesday, so by the time you read this, we should be back from having the funeral for Donna’s mother, Glenave Curtis. […]
I have tried to be observant. I have tried to not go through life on Auto-Control, lost in thought, distracted by small stuff, or too busy to just see things. I don’t want to miss the gorgeous little blue flower on a western Colorado mountain side that is swamped by swaying brown grass and bushy […]
I am thrilled to have so many people asking already when the next book in my Matt Zampolos series is coming out. It is exciting and humbling to know that some folks are truly enjoying the adventure and anxious to jump into the next part of the story. Actually, the third book was finished last […]
When you are creating a fictional story about a fictional place, everything is the product of your imagination. I guess that’s what they call the “creative process”. In writing a series of stories about the spirit realm, I certainly used my imagination to formulate what it looked like, who was there, and what they did. […]
This year’s musical is history. We had our last performance at 6:00 Sunday evening to a wonderful full house of expectant and supportive attendees. As I write this, last night we dismantled the stage, took down all the scenery, put things away, and cleaned up the auditorium. It looks like our old auditorium again. A […]
Our 2018 Bible Action Musical is this week. Beginning Thursday evening at 7:00 and going through our Sunday evening performance at 6:00, we will be performing this year’s Bible story musical Phractured Parables. This is our thirteen year to tell a Bible story with music, drama, and lots of laughs and tears. I always write […]
When it comes to marketing my own books, I am my own worst enemy. Whether it’s self-published or done through a publisher, after writing ten books I’m probably worse at selling my own books today than I was thirty-plus years ago, when the first one came out. It’s always so difficult to get past the […]
Everyone knows the difference between a uniting conjunction and a contrasting conjunction. And, puts two thing of equal value together in a sentence. “Repent and be baptized” in Acts 2:38 puts two things of equal value together to bring about the “remission of sins”. But, is used to contrast things that don’t go together. I […]
In the spirit realm world of Yahlandice, names and titles change with the cultural changes on earth. Since both the Agents of Light and the Agents of Darkness have to function and work on earth, they must talk, act, and to an extent, think like the world they work in. People have asked me why […]
I have been saying for several years now that the primary reason for most church conflict in worship, practices, and even biblical interpretation is our attempt to read about a New Testament church family that was essentially a house church, and make it fit our institutionalized traditional church. Paul had two primary pictures of what […]
Several people have asked me recently why I’ve been writing this series of books about Matt Zampolos. It is an unusual story because, while it’s fiction, I have based it on what I believe or suspect the spirit world might be. It’s a look at life in a realm we know little or nothing about, […]
Book Two is finally out and ready to purchase. The Perspicacious Quandary picks up with Matt Zampolos in his second year as an Agent of Light. In The Judas Sword, Matt is introduced to the spirit realm of Yahlandice and the work of agents who carry out the supportive and protective work of God. The […]
We began a new combined adult Bible class last Sunday morning. We wanted everyone to attend because we are discussing a topic so important and relevant that we didn’t want anyone to miss it. The title – in many ways – says it all! One Yet Different. Our country is rift with divisiveness and polarized […]
I wore this old sweatshirt the other day – and it made me happy. I didn’t buy it. In fact, I wouldn’t have bought it. It’s not my style or my favorite place. It’s a little too simple and plain for a sweatshirt – if I were spending the money. Yet, it’s one of my […]
We are finishing up a three month study of God. Yes, I realize that studying God is something we always do because we spend lots of time studying His Word – the Bible. But, when we study the Bible, are we really seeking an understanding of God? Are we really looking for any possible insight […]
I’ve read it hundreds of time over the years, but I truly hadn’t paid much attention to it. It’s a little sentence in the Bible that is surrounded by some incredibly well-known and well-loved verses, and it just gets lost in the rush to move from power-verse to power-verse – I guess. I absolutely adore […]
The next book in my series of stories about Matt Zampolos should be coming out within the next month or so. In The Judas Sword the reader was introduced to the new and youngest Agent of Light in Camp Omega. Camp Omega is just one of thousands of Agent camps in the spirit realm of […]
I don’t put every review of any of my books on a blog or a Facebook post. I’d like to, but I don’t. I did want to share the following comments from an old friend, who just recently got around to reading The Judas Sword. It was so funny and sweet that I wanted to […]
You used to hear it rather often, but in our modern society where everyone wants to get somewhere as fast as possible, it’s no longer “Getting there is half the fun,” but being there is all the fun. To be honest, I’m one of those folks who have changed. I’ve always loved going places, but […]
I was recently asked by a friend about my journey into the world of writing. It is always interesting and enlightening to reflect back on how we got from one point in our life to another. That may not be true, of course, if the end result is negative or sad, but most of the […]
I recently finished writing our thirteenth Bible Action Musical here at the Florissant Church of Christ. We began doing musical Bible stories for the shear joy and purpose of simply telling a story from the Bible to our community. I called the ministry Bible Action so that we could maintain a foundation while changing stories […]
Angels have to be extraordinary beings. If it’s possible that some agents may have once been human beings rather than created heavenly beings, then they must be exceedingly mature and unselfish people. Maybe that’s part of their qualifications for angel work. I don’t know because the Bible gives us only a few insights into these […]
It’s Wednesday morning and I’m not working on a sermon. It feels weird and a little wrong. We are having our marriage retreat this weekend, and while I’m the organizer, planner, and coordinator of the whole thing – I’m not preaching, and that’s actually kind of nice. On my morning walk today, when I usually […]
One of the things that has changed for me in my reading of the Bible has been noticing the frequency of angel appearances. I’ve been reading the Bible for way over half a century now, so it’s not like I hadn’t seen all the occasions when an angel shows up. For some reason, they were […]