For the first twenty years of my Christian journey, loving God was about as foreign to me as loving the school principal would have been when I was a student. The principal was in charge, so I respected and obeyed him. I submitted to his authority, but I certainly didn’t feel close to him.
—Wayne Hobbes, in Discipleship Journal, January/February 2008

The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. Love of God is not embraced until his goodness is tasted.

I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; I could be just as proud for half the money.
—Arthur Godfrey

Part of the freedom of democratically free societies is the freedom to joke about taxes, like have you noticed when you put the word “the” together with “IRS” it spells “theirs”?

I hoping a little light-hearted levity on income tax deadline will be helpful.

Earlier this week, on the morning of my wife Vicki’s 59th birthday, I went to the gym and as part of my regular routine—after riding the stationary bike and working several of the weight machines—I went out on the basketball court to shoot baskets. A number of folks who know me have been asking how I’ve been doing at my sabbatical goal of making 100 consecutive free throws. My personal record is 87. That is, my previous personal record.

Wednesday morning somewhere around 7:00am I reached 95 in a row.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all contentment in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
—2 Corinthians 9:8

Why_I_Am_Full_of_Hope_About_Bethlehems_Future_part2.pdf

On January 11, just after I returned from the eight-month leave, I wrote an article for the church called “Why I Am Full of Hope about Bethlehem’s Future.” I said there were about 35 reasons for this hope—actually there are a lot more than that. I gave the first half of that list. This is part two.

God’s clock does not merely mark time, but determines the times.

No question that begins with “Why?” can be answered scientifically.
—Henry M. Morris, in “When God Became Man”

Science can observe relationships, including cause and effect relationships, but it cannot answer why they came into existence in the first place.

Science cannot explain moral imperatives nor impose them.

Science can observe how the material universe is constituted but cannot explain why it should be constituted in just that way.

An Interview With Pastor Kempton Turner About the Sovereignty of God and a Severely Disabled Son 

Star 01-11-11.pdf

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Why_I_Am_Full_of_Hope_About_Bethlehems_Future.pdf

In 1982, two years into my ministry at Bethlehem, our people were anxious about the impact of the Metrodome on our survival as a downtown church. The dome was just being finished, and people were saying that the traffic and the parking and the Sunday games would kill us. We should consider leaving the city.