When Martyrdom Doesn't Matter Shortly after I became a follower of Jesus, somebody in a group Bible study said something that was kind of like theological shock therapy for me. "You know," he said, "not all the martyrs in Christian history are going to be in heaven.” I thought to...

Diabetes for Dummies I spend time with a woman every other month who uses words such as "dummy," "stupid," and "idiot" when describing herself. As she acknowledges what hinders her from making healthy choices and positive changes for improved diabetes management, the deprecations flow. It pains me to hear her...

Presently, for my local church, I’m in the midst of a preaching series on the book of Romans, called All Roads Lead to Romans. And the next sermon is on one of my three favorite passages in Romans: chapter 3:21-31. Without going into too much detail, I want to highlight...

Have you ever expected one thing and gotten another? Once while traveling to Germany, I expected a small, gutless, compact rental car, because that’s what I reserved. What I got was a large, four-door, super-fast BMW luxury car, because that’s all they had left. I had great fun on the...

Shortly after finishing her master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University, Ana Montes was hired at the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). What the DIA didn’t know was that she already had been hired by the Cuban government. For 16 years she was a double agent and, in that time, did...

São Tomé and Princípe is a small country located on the seacoast of West Central Africa, just under the equator. With a population of approximately only 200,000, São Tomé and Príncipe is a peaceful country. It has few cities, but its population is heartwarming, welcoming, and open to the gospel....

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). As I was thinking about this verse the phrase, “He will rest in His...

Growth doesn't occur without resistance of some kind. Sometimes the strongest resistance we face when pursuing change is from ourselves. How do you feel when you think of going back to school, joining the gym, losing weight, or apologizing for a wrong? That’s resistance. How do we surmount the thoughts...

This year, 2019, the Seventh-day Adventist Church marks one hundred years of its existence in Rwanda. A  celebration was held on August 31. It was a high Sabbath. About 50,000 Adventists packed into the Mahoro stadium in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda. Ted Wilson, the General Conference president, along...

Get three animals, cut each of them in two, straight down the middle, and lay the pieces across from one another to form a pathway between the three sets of severed pieces. Strange instructions, but that’s what God told Abram to do. There was a context and there was a...

These articles on insulin resistance are an attempt to provide reasons for resisting the typical approach to managing diabetes. I find that when the focus is primarily on blood sugar readings, we tend to forget the larger picture and ignore factors that, if addressed, have the potential to improve the...

In a Different Army I met him near Kisumu City in Western Kenya. His name is Dyvan Fred Khakame. He served as a counselor and "pastor" in the Salvation Army, led the Salvation Army youth choir, worked with World Vision's ARK (abstain and risk in youth) project, helped the East...