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Butterfly A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could…

Officials at Delaware State University announced they are cancelling over $730,000 dollars in student debt for graduating students who faced financial hardships during the pandemic. Officials said the average eligible student will qualify for about $3200 in debt relief which totals about a third of a…

# Philippians 1:9-11 ## Opening — Paul’s Prayer This morning we conclude our look at the opening section of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. In verses 1–2, we have the opening salutation which identifies the author, Paul, and with him Timothy—The young man he has mentored. It also identifies the recipients—all…

In their book, No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer write, “The vast majority of firms fail when their industry shifts. Kodak failed to adapt from paper photos to digital. Nokia failed to adapt from flip phones to smartphones. AOL failed to adapt from dial-up…

A Greek student decided that the best way to get back home was to ride a bicycle after flights were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kleon Papadimitriou was studying at the University of Aberdeen and was not able to book a flight home to Athens, so researched the possibility of riding a bicycle…

In his book, Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World, Max Lucado writes, “One would think Christians would be exempt from worry. But we are not. We have been taught that the Christian life is a life of peace, and when we don;t have peace, we assume the problem lies within us. Not only do…

Kara Tippett took a question posed by Martin Luther, “What will you do in the mundane days of faithfulness?” and intended to write a blog with topics like the daily grind of laundry, screaming kids, and getting dinner on the table. She would write of living by faith through the everyday weariness and…

In his book, Leading Major Change in your Ministry, Jeff Iorg writes, “Over time, mission drift occurs in almost every organization. Followers and leaders alike can lose focus of their ministry’s true purpose and allow their efforts to become more about meeting their needs than fulfilling the organization’s…

Our culture is in the age of the superhero. Two of the most anticipated movies of the 2017 season were Thor: Ragnarok, and The Justice League. These movies come on the tail of the summer box office smashes Spiderman: Homecoming and Wonder Woman, and the myriad of movies and television series following…

# Philippians 1:3–8 ## Opening: Paul’s Thanksgiving As we move on this morning in our study of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we find Paul following his normal pattern of thanksgiving and prayer. This week we will look at his statement of thanksgiving about the Philippians, and next week we will look…

In “Serving the Right Master,” C. Les Wesley writes, “In that moment, it was clear I had the two things of real value with me: my wife and my unborn daughter. Hurricane Katrina would not destroy anything that could not later be rebuilt. Oh, I would miss our possessions and the pictures that would be…

# Philippians 3:17–21 ## Opening So far in this chapter Paul has warned against the Judaizers, and any who would place their confidence in who they are, or what they have done and not the finished work of Christ alone. By way of rebuking this idea, Paul gives his own longs list of “fleshly” qualifications…

Imagine going to Chicago on a business trip. You have a bunch of meetings and have plans to fly out right after your last meeting to meet your family in some great vacation spot. Your meetings run late and you know it is going to be a challenge to get to the airport and get checked in so you can make…

Despite going through two years of hardship, a church in Cape Cod Massachusetts has plans to rebuild after an arsonist burned their old building to the ground. The church broke ground on a new and larger building exactly two years after the old building was destroyed. Pastor Myron Heckman told a local…

Mindy Belz, writing in World Magazine says “Our present day ingratitude may have taken root during the 1950s, when we thanked ourselves for our new prosperity instead of God.” Somewhere along the way, our National day of Thanksgiving has changed. History teaches that we find Thanksgivings beginnings…

The cell-phone video of a woman paying for diapers for a cash strapped young mother went viral after another shopper who witnessed the act of kindness and put it on his Facebook page. Carol Flynn had just paid for her purchase and was preparing to leave the store, when she overheard a young woman behind…

After a fire broke out in the engine room of the cruise ship, Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico, 400-plus passengers and crew endured several days of hardship before the ship could be towed back to port. Joseph and Cecilia Alvarez were among the passengers on that cruise. On the morning the fire broke out,…

Sundar Singh was born into a wealthy family in India in 1889. His mother trained him from birth to become a Sikh holy man, and by age seven he could quote by heart vast portions of Hindu holy books. Seeing his intelligence, his mother eventually sent him to a Presbyterian school for a one-year’s course…

HARDSHIP/PERSEVERANCE I don't think it was the worst thing that could happen at a concert, but it wasn't good. On November 18, 1995, a string on Itzhak Perlman's violin snapped as he played at Avery Fisher Hall, at the Lincoln Center in New York. Really, the word snapped doesn't convey what happened…

Mother’s Day isn’t the easiest day for Cheryl to go to church. It isn’t that she resents the pastor passing out roses to the mothers or recognizing the oldest, youngest and the mother with the most children. It’s just that she wishes that sometime during the service someone would recognize those present…

Young people often grimace when they hear the word "test". To them, it means long hours of memorizing information that they feel is pretty worthless in real life. The benefit of getting an A or a B doesn't weigh as heavily in their minds as the sacrifice of time and effort in study. In their minds, it's…

EVANGELISM In the book, 10 Things I Hate About Christianity, author Jason T. Berggren presents a unique challenge to believers. Berggren says, ”Consider no longer calling yourself a Christian.” He writes, “Take a few minutes to think about what it would mean if you had to stop using that term to describe…

Hardships For hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground. [7] Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward. (Job 5:6-7 NIV) I'd like to think that calamity will visit everyone but me, but I know it isn't true. Calamity will visit your home, and it will…

A surprising number of teenagers — nearly 15 percent — think they're going to die young, leading many to drug use, suicide attempts and other unsafe behavior, new research suggests. The study, based on a survey of more than 20,000 kids, challenges conventional wisdom that says teens engage in risky behavior…

A recent survey by the Gallup organization found the recent economic hardship in America has not had much effect on the number of people attending religious services each week or the number of people who say religion is an important part of their daily life. The Gallup study conducted in March 2009 found…