KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Kneemail - God's Word
WHEN WE THINK of Elijah, we never think of him as one who would doubt because he was strong and bold when he encountered the false prophets at Mount Carmel... He proved that God was the true God of...
THE VERB "BEWARE" is used in the New Testament 31 times... That in itself shows that there is constant danger in living the Christian life. The prophet Ezekiel warns of the same danger mentioned here. God's people were in danger...
Mystery on the Desert, Maria Reiche describes a series of strange lines made by thte Nazca in the plains of Peru, some of them covering many square miles... For years, people assumed these lines were the remnants of ancient irrigation...
AS A MAN Thinketh by James Allen is arguably the best non-inspired book ever written on the power of thought... Allen compared the mind to a garden and its owner to a master gardener. A good character is not the...
EVER PLANT A garden...? Or maybe just a few flowers in a bed or a plant in a pot? Something makes it possible for the gardener to function, or a farmer to produce a crop is a "law" of nature....
FOR RELATIVISTS JUSTICE is simply the plaything of the courts... Or, in the words of Charles Evans Hughes, "the Constitution is what the judges say it is." Even more disturbing were the words of Chief Justice Fred Vinson, in the...
WILLIAM TYNDALE WAS born in A.D. 1494, near the middle of the Dark Ages... The times were dark because the Scriptures had long been kept from the people by the Roman Catholic church. Church leaders believed that only members of...
THE YOUNG LADY stopped by the book store to pick up a book, the best-seller of the day... She hurried home with anticipation of spending a pleasant evening with the book. After arranging the comfortable chair and the reading light,...
"IS IT REALLY possible for a person to KNOW the truth...?" There are so many opinions about what the Bible teaches. "Is truth even attainable in the religious realm?" These are common questions today. Consider a few observations from Scripture:...
A MAN VISITED Tiffany's jewelry store in New York City... He was shown a magnificent diamond with its gleaming yellow light and many other splendid stones. But he observed one stone that was perfectly lusterless and said, "That has no...
NOAH CONSTRUCTED THE ark by faith (Hebrews 11:7)... Did Noah spend a hundred years building the ark with an uncertifiable faith? Did Noah's faith declare, "I believe that God is, that He has instructed me to build an ark, but...
WHENEVER YOU FIND yourself going through times of testing, there is always a reason...a very good reason... In fact, there are several reasons. Testing times are to: UNCOVER something: When God allows pressures and trials, it is so that you...
BARNA RESEARCH GROUP found that: . Eighty-two percent of regular Bible readers described themselves as "at peace" compared to 58 percent of those who said they never read the Bible. . Seventy-eight percent of regular Bible readers said they felt...
HAVE YOU EVER tried to figure out the remote control for your television set...? I find myself calling our cable company at least once or twice a year to say, "Hey, how do I make this thing work?" Inevitably, some...
JOHN KASS, A columnist for the Chicago Tribune, wrote about a waiter he met named Bouch, who worked at a tavern in Chicago... Bouch decided to write to the king of his homeland, Morocco. King Mohammed VI is immensely popular...
PRESIDENT JOHN QUINCY Adams once called both Houses of Congress together for a special meeting... He walked in carrying two bushel baskets. He said, "The bushel measure in my right hand came from South Carolina; the one in my left...
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH century, no skeptic delighted in finding humor at the expense of the Bible (and Christianity in general) more than Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire... His rejection of a personal God -- of God as Father --...
YEARS AGO SOME soldiers at Ft. Dix were fighting in a forest fire... They were out in the forest with the flames all around them when a plane flew over unexpectedly. The unidentified pilot flew very low over the firefighters...
THIS PAST WEEK, on June 16 the, a major religious body in the United States, at their national convention, voted against two proposals that expressed opposition to all same sex unions... My response to such an action is two-fold: ....
JANUARY 24, 1848 was a significant date in the history of one particular region of our country -- the West... On this day, James Wilson Marshall made a discovery at Sutter's Mill in California that would have a profound effect...
IT IS FAULTY thinking to suggest that only the red letters of the Bible really matter or possess authority over us... Jesus told His apostles that He had many things to say to them, but that they were unable to...
IT IS NOT enough to be willing to listen... Jesus told His disciples to let His words sink down into their ears, i.e., lodge within their minds and take up permanent residence. In John 5, Jesus confronted the Jews who...
TWO THOUSAND YEARS ago a little, old man sat in a cold prison cell writing on a piece of parchment... The government which imprisoned him was one of the most powerful the world has ever known. It ruled from India...
...SOME PEOPLE WORSHIP their bodies... People spend hours at the gym, sculpting their bodies, yet completely neglecting their spiritual lives. ...Some people think nothing of getting up at the crack of dawn and heading to the gym for that hour-and-a-half...
YEARS AGO, A radio station received a letter from a shepherd who lived on an isolated ranch in the western part of the United States... Never before had the station received such an unusual request. It read, "Will you please...
IN SCHOOL I was asked to read, "The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Text..." One chapter by S.V. McCasland, entitled, "Matthew Twists the Scriptures," was filled with outlandish statements. McCasland said, "Matthew felt free in changing and distorting the Scriptures."...
ONE DAY AS Abraham Lincoln was leaving church, he was asked what he thought of the minister's sermon... "The minister had a strong voice and good delivery," the President began, "But he forgot the most important part of a sermon....
...THE VOICE OF nature is impotent regarding the revelation of the will of God... It can proclaim "God is," but not "God said." It can disclose the face of God but not the mind of God. Man may descend into...
A NEW RESIDENT at the drug rehab center where I worked was given the task of planting runner-bean seeds. With no experience growing vegetables, Jim quickly became bored waiting for the seeds to sprout. After weeks of seeing nothing happen,...
AN OLD FARMER'S advice: . Life is simpler when you plow around the stump. . Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. . Meanness don't jes' happen overnight. . Forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads. ....
THE PRINCE OF Granada was sentenced to Madrid's infamous prison, The Place of Skulls, in fears that he might aspire to the throne... For thirty-three years he remained in solitary confinement with but one book to read -- the Bible....
WHILE DRIVING THROUGH a school zone, do you watch for the police or kids...? Typically, those who watch for the police rather than kids obey the restrictive speed limits out of a sense of obligation or fear of being caught....
THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO victory in World War II was enormous, but few people even knew about them... In 1942, the US Army recruited and trained 29 young Navajo Indians and sent them to a base surrounded in secrecy. These people,...
A WOMAN ONCE wrote me to say she thought Christianity was fine but, personally, she was "into Zen..." She liked to listen to Christian radio while she was driving because the music "smoothed out her karma." Occasionally, however, she would...
THE TRUTH OF God is not aimed at learned intellectuals; it is simple enough for a child (Matt. 11:25)... The Word of God is not a puzzle. It does not speak in riddles. It is not cryptic or mysterious. It...
THIS PAST WEEK, the chaplain for the Washington National's baseball team was suspended and barred from the clubhouse... What did he do? Did he spit in the face of an umpire as I have seen some players do? Did he...
THE RELIGIOUS AUTHORITIES were extremely upset that the apostles were advocating Christian concepts... They brought Peter and John into their assembly and demanded to know, "By what power or by what name have you done this?" (Acts 4:7). The word...
SUPPOSE THAT THERE was a man who had lived upon this earth for 1800 years... And suppose that during this 1800 years that this man had often been thrown into the sea and yet could not be drowned; that he...
FIVE FARMERS BOUGHT a sack of seed and agreed to plant their respective fields with the seed that came that bag... The seed was supposedly to have been pure. After some weeks had passed these farmers came together to report...
THE PREACHER IS to study... Dry wells cannot give forth water. Brethren will not long come to stagnate pools to drink. We cannot teach what we do not know any more than we can come back from where we have...
I AM THE last person in the world to talk about this... I eat from the three basic food groups -- McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King. I have a personality clash with vegetables. They don't like me, and the feeling...
AHAB, KING OF Israel, and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, conspired together to go up and take Ramoth-Gilead in Syria... When Jehoshaphat asked Ahab to "inquire of the Lord whether they should go up," Ahab immediately called upon his 400 "yes...
A MECHANIC WENT to hear a visiting evangelist in a little town... The preacher preached that night on money, and presented the sermon under three points. First point: "Make all you can." The mechanic nudged his wife and said, "That...