Debbie W. Wilson

Refreshing Faith

Help for Recognizing and Resisting Worldly Ideas

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When we lived in California, Larry and I sometimes attended the evening services of a church other than our home church. The pastor knew the scriptures inside and out and used them to expose the worldly ideas promoted by our culture. After we left California, we heard him speak at a church in Oklahoma. I commented to Larry he seemed different. Kind of cocky.

I still ordered his teaching tapes and followed his ministry. Then I learned he’d resigned from his church. Tragically, this brilliant leader had stepped into another kind of trap. He’d become emotionally involved with a woman who’d come to him for help.

His failing not only betrayed his wife, church, and family, he betrayed his community and all who followed his teaching. I grieved as though a close friend had died. How could someone who accurately handled the word of God fall so far?Continue Reading

Sometimes We Discover God in the Midst of Disappointment

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My teenaged heart awoke to God while lying on my back on a dock staring at stars visible only to someone away from city lights. The smell of the marsh, the rhythmic lap of the river, and the chirping night symphony cast a spell that made me feel small, yet part of something magnificent. David surely felt this magic when he wrote, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps. 19:1).

Abraham also felt it. “For the Scriptures tell us, ‘Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith’” (Rom. 4:3, nlt). Genesis says this happened while he gazed at the stars.

Abraham had just defeated four wicked kings to rescue Lot, and he’d given up his rightful monetary reward. Perhaps he worried these kings would seek retribution. Or, in hindsight, had he been foolish not to take his fair share of the booty? Maybe he was just worn out from battle. Whatever his state, God understood Continue Reading

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

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Randy Alcorn once said, “The faith that can’t be shaken is the faith that has been shaken.” Have circumstances ever shaken your faith? I’m sure watching Jesus’ crucifixion shook the disciples to their toes.

After three years of witnessing Jesus’ miracles, they couldn’t understand His declaration that He was about to leave them. And how could darkness reign while He was still with them?

Mark 14-15 records Christ’s last hours. Watching Jesus suffer through false accusations, illegal trials, floggings, beatings, being spat upon, mocked, heaped with insults, and finally being nailed to a cross shook them these men who’d left everything to follow Him.

They listened in disgust as some feigned a desire to believe. “If He’d only come down from the cross. He saved others but can’t save Himself!”

They knew He could come down from the cross. Why didn’t He?Continue Reading

How Can You Stand in the Gap?

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I’m delighted to introduce you to my AWSA (Advanced Writer and Speaker Association) sister and award winning author, Sheri Schofield. Today she challenges us to stand in the gap for America. Here’s Sheri.

Standing in the Gap

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God” (1 Peter 4:1-2 NIV).

Do you read about the Roman persecution of the early Christians or the sufferings of the Holocaust and feel grateful that we don’t live then? I do. Unfortunately, we are coming to a time in America when there is rising injustice and persecution against those who follow Christ. I know. My family went through an injustice because of our faith. Without God’s help, we would have been crushed. As it is, we live with the scars of that battle in our bodies and hearts.Continue Reading

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