Ebola virus disease (EVD) was first identified in 1976. Infected people have symptoms such as fever, sore throat, muscle pain, rash, hemorrhaging, and the loss of liver and kidney function. There is no vaccine for EVD. There is no medication that effectively treats it. Death claims 50% of all Ebola victims. This risk explains the…

[Since some of us want a copy of the short piece shared in my morning message on April 5, it is given below. The reading (which I have modified somewhat) comes from a sermon presented by S. M. Lockridge.] It’s Friday. Jesus is praying. Peter is sleeping. Judas is betraying. The council is conspiring. The…

At some point in his or her Christian experience, a tenderhearted disciple (especially a person battling anxiety) is apt to worry about the Lord’s denunciation of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Have I committed this grievous error? Am I guilty of an “eternal sin”? One day Jesus healed a blind and mute man possessed by…

After rising from baptismal burial with Jesus, a new convert feels wonderfully clean before God. The blood of Christ has washed away his sins, and he is certain that death will find him prepared for the day of judgment. With the passing of time, though, insidious doubts begin to creep in and steal the new…

My father grew up on an Iowa farm in the 1930’s and 40’s. One Saturday afternoon his older brother, Verle, was taking a bath in a tub placed in the middle of the kitchen floor. “The Morlan girls are coming!” someone called out. Hoping to escape the eyes of his cousins, my uncle jumped out…