The thing about taking a shortcut that diminishes quality, like putting a cheap glaze on a clay pot, is that it always gets found out eventually. In other versions of this text, the pot is cheap but the glaze covers it to make it look expensive. Either way, a corner’s been cut and the quality isn’t as good as it could be.

According to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, there were 346 major natural disasters worldwide in 2015. More than 22,000 people died in these disasters and a staggering 98.6 million were affected in some way.

Natural disasters come in various forms including floods, landslides, heat waves, hurricanes, and earthquakes.

As you read Chapter 25, did you find yourself smiling? I sure did.

After all of the prophecies of doom and being confronted with the consequences of sin, it’s refreshing to see Isaiah’s words of praise.

Although they are fundamental Charter rights, the banners of Christian liberty are meeting stiff headwinds in our day in Canada. While multiculturalism is publicly affirmed, Christians often seem to be mocked in the media, and our social policies seem orchestrated to manufacture the slow death of a Christian society.

There is a saying, “Seeing is believing.”

In this passage, there are two men who receive visions, Ananias and Saul, a follower and a persecutor. Their experience might make us want to say instead, “Hearing is believing.”

Saul’s transformation from a man who persecuted Jesus’s followers to being counted one of them is blindingly swift. After the short period of several days with the Lord’s followers in Damascus, he is publicly preaching the same message he had sought to stop. Soon after, he does the same thing in Jerusalem, and he attempts to join the followers.

Singing, laughter, celebration, deliverance! God’s people liberated at last. This is the background to Psalm 126.

Have you ever wondered if what was happening to you was a dream? Such was the case with Peter. Shackled by chains and guarded by four squads of four soldiers each, there was no way he could escape from prison.