The most obvious qualification for the Lord's service, as far as the Lord Himself is concerned, is a repentant heart.

            I have to admit that, when I looked over the appointed Scripture readings to choose a sermon text for each Sunday of the church year, I was tempted to avoid this particular Gospel text--the reason being that it has been so controversial through the years. 

  The story has been told about a group of Americans who were touring some of the magnificent cathedrals of Europe, when a young woman in the group summoned up the courage to ask a question that had been bothering her throughout the tour:  “Why is it, do you suppose,” she asked the guide, “that people today don’t seem to invest as much time and effort and expense in building beautiful houses of worship as people did in earlier times?

A little better than forty-nine years ago, a young man I knew announced to his parents that he wanted to become a pastor

.....since people seldom place any value on anything that they don't have to pay for.

            Maybe I'm just uncomfortable about it because of my particular vocation, but something that I have always felt a little uneasy about is the fact that most of the times when our Lord makes mention of religious leaders in the Gospels, He does so in a negative way.

There are a lot of things that people will tolerate in this world (especially these days), but one thing that a lot of people (if not most) still have a real problem with is broken promises