Lying is rapidly becoming more common that truth telling. And people seem to be able to lie easily and without hesitation. It is becoming more and more their automatic response. Candidates for public office lie to us to enhance their image and make themselves more electable. People lie on dating sites about who they are, what they’ve accomplished, and even if they’re married. Husbands lie to their wives about their internet pornography usage. Wives lie about how much money they have spent and what they spend money on. Businessmen lie to their customers about their products, pricing, and delivery times. Are we a nation of liars? Does anybody tell the truth anymore? I think there are still truth tellers among us, but not nearly ...

One of the problems now facing many on Facebook is how to “unfriend” someone. Yes, the mechanics of unfriending are pretty straightforward but the emotional aspect is not. It’s hard to tell someone that you don’t want to be their friend any more. After all, we want people to like us, to think we’re good people. We don’t want to offend people or hurt their feelings. What if they don’t understand? What if they retaliate and start a smear campaign against us with all our friends? So, emotional paralysis enters in and we do nothing.

Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott have some thoughts on the subject of friendships. In their excellent book, Relationships: How to Make Bad Relationships Better and Good ......

There are a lot of cell phones in the USA. Based on Pew Research done in 2014, there were 327,577,529 cell phones. Our entire population in the USA in 2014 was only 317, 874,628! Believe it or not, the USA only ranks third among nations owning cell phones. China and India, with their massive populations, rank first and second with 1.276 billion and 1.017 billion respectively. That’s a lot of phones! So what’s the problem? The problem is cell phone addiction. Wait a minute. Are you saying people can become addicted to a cell phone? Yes! Easily!

You see it every day. So do I. People looking down at their cell phones . . . constantly. They seemingly can’t go for long without checking their cell phones to see if someone sent ...

Hebrews 11 is the “Hall of Fame of Faith.” In it the author starts the chapter by giving us his definition of faith, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). So that’s what faith is, the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things unseen. The author illustrates that definition for the balance of the 40 verses by telling us what faith does. Faith understands that God created the universe out of nothing (ex nihilo). Faith gives acceptable offerings to God, obeys God in spite of circumstances, trusts God to keep His promises, and much more. What’s the commonality of faith? Action. As the Apostle James declared, “Faith ...