The Best Christian Teachings and Readings

"And [Jesus] found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers seated. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple... His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for Thy house will consume me.'" (John 2:14, 15, 17) Imagine how the disciples felt watching their Master upsetting the lovely decorum of the temple. The noise, the dust, the shouting, the money spilling, the tables upturned - how dare He do such a thing! The disciples were probably shocked at first, then elated. That's how I would have felt. "Good job, Jesus! Show everyone who's boss!" When it was over, the disciples thought back to the Scripture that says, "Zeal for Thy house has consumed me." (Psalm 69:9) They thought, Now we see what that means. Jesus loves His Father's house so deeply that He won't tolerate sin in it. No doubt Jesus' action that day excited everyone. The common peo...

There I was, seated in row 17, flying from Dallas to Los Angeles. I began to day-dream, thinking about a friend of mine who had once treated me (what I thought was) unfairly in a financial dealing we'd had. As I turned the whole incident over in my mind, I remembered how I had originally consoled my bruised feelings by thinking to myself, "Well, that's okay, it's God's money anyway-God'll deal with him." But flying on that jet through the night, I started to get an uneasy feeling inside, almost like vengeance. All of a sudden, it wasn't enough to put the whole thing in God's hands. I found myself thinking, "I sure hope the Lord brings that whole thing up when so-and-so stands before Him on the day of judgment." And then, immediately, the Lord broke into my thoughts and said to me, "I'll be glad to bring it up - as long as you don't mind Me bringing up all the stupid things you've done!" I burst out lau...

"Now the people became like those who complain about adversity in the hearing of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp." (Num. 11:1-2) Grumbling and complaining is one thing we don’t get too concerned about these days. I mean everybody grumbles about something, right? Husbands and wives complain about each other. Kids tell each other how terrible their folks are. Christians grumble about one another - even about their leaders! The nation of Israel had a long history of grumbling and complaining. You can read about the misery it brought them in the first five books of the Old Testament. I have to confess, for a long time I didn’t like those five books because I thought they were full of The Law. God’s wrath could be pretty terrible. Sometimes He sent plagues or fire from heaven. In Numbers 16, you read about the "rebellion of Korah" when the ground...