A few weeks ago, one of our staff members and myself were seated in a restaurant on the West Coast and the young lady who was waiting on us was doing a great job and she looked like she was in her twenties or somewhere thereabouts. And so the second [...]

What do you worry about most in life? Is it your health, your marriage, your children? Maybe you worry most about what other people think about you. Maybe it's because you're worried because you don't know what God thinks about you and you're [...]

To obey God is always the right thing to do, the wisest thing to do, but not always the easiest thing to do. And when you think about your life and what God requires of us, we all have to admit that sometime it's not the easiest. Sometimes we think, [...]

Would the people who know you best consider you courageous or cowardly? When they've watched you make decisions that were difficult, did they watch you run away from difficult situations? Or did they watch you courageously face them? When you made [...]

Jesus is the pattern in the life of every single believer for every aspect of life. In relationship to God the Father? Obedience. In relationship to others? Love. In relationship to things; He always used those to the glory of the heavenly Father. [...]

Every command that God gives us in His Word has a divine purpose behind it. He doesn't just give commands just to be for giving them. He gives them for a specific reason. It is always for our good. When you and I understand those commands, often [...]

Have you ever suddenly found yourself confronted with a strong, enticing, very inviting, seemingly irresistible temptation? What did you do? Did you just suddenly walk away, or did you find yourself debating with yourself and trying to decide what [...]

If you were a general in the army and you were going to war against another nation, one thing you would do very carefully: You would study the life of the opposing general. You would learn everything you possibly could about him. You'd know all [...]

Why are so many people so unhappy, anxious, disturbed, unsettled, and full of discontentment? No matter what they have, who they have, what their position, what their prominence, what their status is in life, they're still discontent. Now, a lot of [...]

Have you ever thought about what kind of reward you're gonna receive when you get to Heaven? Well, you say, "Well, like what kind of rewards"? Well, have you ever just thought about what kind of rewards you gonna receive? And have you [...]

Who is a successful parent? Well, you say, "Well, what does it take to be a successful parent? Isn't that just somebody's personal opinion"? Not really. The Bible's very clear about what it takes to be a successful parent. But let me ask [...]

Some of the most profound scriptures and some of the most profound principles in the Bible are often times rather easily understood. And then there are those principles or those texts that are not quite so easily understood, in fact, sometimes very [...]

When you think about God how do you visualize Him? I mean, do you see Him as a young man? Do you see Him as middle aged or do you see Him as an old man with white hair sitting on a throne somewhere? When you talk to Him what do you talk about? What [...]

I want to ask you a real tough question. Is God in everything? Is God in everything in your life? It's a tough question and one sometimes, we would like to avoid but one that every one of us need to have a very clear answer about in our life. And [...]

Do you realize that God has a very specific plan for your life that He has not just left you here to flounder through life and wander around trying to figure out what you're going to do or how you're going to spend your life? You see most of us have [...]

Our text for this message is probably the most familiar passage in all the Bible. In fact, I can remember when I was a school kid that everybody had to memorize this passage. And usually, you will hear this passage of scripture read at almost every [...]

If someone should say to you, "How much faith do you have"? how would you answer that? Well, the Bible talks about little faith, great faith, and perfect faith. Little faith is: "I know He can but I'm not sure He will". Great [...]

One day, I was sitting in my study, and I was thinking, "Well, we need to give this thing a name besides just the First Baptist Church". I looked over to my left, and there was a Living Bible translation. They had titled this Bible [...]

God issues three calls to every single person. First of all is the call to salvation. That is a call to confess our sins, to repent of our sins, and place our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and our Master and our Lord. The second call is the [...]

At the end of one of our In Touch rallies, I was shaking hands with some people, and a lady walked up to me and she handed me a piece of paper that was a part of a sheet of a stenographer's pad. And so, I put it in my pocket, and later on, I pulled [...]

Do you enjoy waiting in line at the checkout counter, big grocery chain, when there are about four or five people in front of you with baskets just loaded with groceries? Do you enjoy that? Enjoy that kind of wait? Do you enjoy waiting at that [...]

All of us experience, at times in our life, fatigue and weariness and being a little bit worn out. But, when that fatigue or that weariness develops into a spirit of being discouraged because you can't ever seem to get over it, having the feelings [...]

Sometimes without warning, you and I find ourselves stepping into a valley we didn't ask for and we can't do anything about. And oftentimes the instant response within us is frustration, something we cannot control, something we cannot change, [...]

What are the desires of your heart? If God were to say to you, "Ask Me anything you want, no matter what it is, ask Me for one desire, I'll give you the desire of your heart," somebody would say, "Well, that would be fantastic". [...]

When you do something wrong and you know it's wrong, how do you feel? Well, you feel guilty. But let me ask you this, have you ever had the same feelings when you didn't do anything wrong? Oftentimes we do. Guilt is something all of us have to deal [...]

The title of this message is the title of the oldest game in all of humanity. It is a game all of us have played, probably many times, in our life. And one in which just two people can play it. Or, I might say about it also that, it's not a game [...]

One of the greatest barriers in our life to achievements, to relationships, good relationships or to real, genuine contentment in life is what we feel about ourselves. And those feelings can either be very helpful or they can be absolutely [...]

How do you respond when you have feelings of anger? What causes you to be stirred up with anger the most? Is it somebody, some people, or is it some circumstances? Do you think that all of your anger is sin and is it possible to be angry and not [...]

Three times the night before the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, He said this to His disciples. He said, "Love one another. Love one another. Love one another". And then, throughout the epistles, we find the writers of the epistles saying [...]

What do you fear most in life? Is it loss of financial security? Is it the loss of your health? Maybe a loss of your job, your vocation, the area in which you have worked all these years. Maybe it's a relationship or maybe somebody in your family, [...]

Fear and anxiety have plagued the human race from the very beginning of time. Think about this, the first recorded conversation between God and the first man was like this: man, in that conversation said, "I was afraid". And all down [...]

God does not desire that you and I be lonely, but rather that you and I have friends and that we be a friend. And most of all, that Jesus Christ is our friend above all other friends. All the way from the beginning of time God has desired that you [...]

Every emotion that you and I experience in this life, somewhere in the Bible you're gonna find someone there who experienced the same kind of emotions. Sometimes it was hatred, sometimes it was love. It just went from one gamut to the other. So, all [...]

Why is it that so often we hear about men and women who are in the ministry who are serving the Lord, doing the Lord's work falling by the wayside, sometimes because of moral problems or sometimes because they just get disgusted, disillusioned, and [...]

It is in the love and the wisdom of God that He has chosen not to tell us many things in life. One of those aspects of life He does not reveal: those things that are going to take place in the future of our life that are difficult, trials, [...]

Why is it that so many people who've trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior spend their entire Christian life struggling and feeling defeated in their Christian life? Well, probably one of the reasons is, they don't understand what happened when they [...]

Have you ever felt like God told you to do something, and you started out that way, and then somewhere along the way, you either got discouraged, something happened, and you just decided you would do it some other way? And you realized shortly [...]

If somebody approached you and said, "I don't know anything about God, but I would like to know. Would you tell me, would you explain to me about your God"? What words would you use to explain what God is like? Well, then after you did [...]

Jesus said, "Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened". Then He said, [...]

Because you and I cannot see into the future, life is full of unknowns. The question is: How do you and I respond to those unknowns in life? Some people respond with confidence and assurance. Many people respond with fear and anxiety and frustration [...]

If you had to state the meaning of c in one sentence, what would you say? How would you describe what Christmas means to you in just one sentence? Would you say that Christmas is the birthday of Jesus? That's probably what most people would say. Or [...]

Does it really make any difference whether Jesus was born of a virgin or not? To some people, they say, "Well, it doesn't really make any difference". To others, say, "Yes, it does make a difference". And so, we hear all kind of [...]

Christmas is the happiest time of the year. Not only is it the happiest time of the year but it's specially the happiest time of the year for all of us who are believers who know that Jesus Christ is our personal Savior. Now that doesn't mean [...]

Suppose you'd never seen a Bible, never heard a sermon, never been in a church, never watched anything on television that reminded you of anything religious, and all of a sudden you landed in this country on this weekend. And you said to someone, [...]

If you were to die today, are you sure you have eternal life? Does that question disturb you a little bit? Does it make you feel sort of restless, maybe a little insecure, uncertain, maybe a little doubtful, maybe a little fearful, maybe even a [...]

Why is it that so many people who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior continually live in rebellion against Him? And why is it that so many people who name the name of Jesus as their Savior refuse to serve Him and their church, among other [...]

There is an ever-growing and very strong interest these days in longevity, that is the duration of our life. In fact, if you'll think about all the emphasis we hear today on good health. And you look around on the television you see all these ads [...]

What would you consider the greatest need in the life of a believer? Well, somebody might say, "Well, certainly, to pray would be the greatest need". Or someone might say, "Surely, to read the Word of God would be the greatest [...]

It is very clear from scripture that God always honors faith in Himself. I didn't say that God always honors faith, I said that God always honors faith in Himself. All the way through the Gospels, what we find is we find Jesus responding to people [...]

When you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you immediately entered into a life of faith. That is, you entered into a sense of confident assurance that the God of the Bible is God. And that not only is He who He says He is, but [...]