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Mark D. Roberts

I took this picture in my backyard a few days ago. If you look carefully, you can count twenty Lesser Goldfinches on the two feeders.

READ Psalm 31:1-24   My future is in your hands. Psalm 31:15a I can still hear the television commercial’s promise echoing in my memory: “You’re in good hands with Allstate.” In fact, this slogan was created by David Ellis, the general sales manager for Allstate Insurance Company in 1950, along with the familiar logo of…

Here are three more photos from my recent vacation, which included several marvelous hikes in the High Sierra of California. Bull Lake, outside of Bishop, California. A Sierra Lily, near Mammoth Lakes, California. My son Nathan in a moment of reflection alongside of Upper Chocolate Lake, in the High Sierra outside of Bishop, California.

I mentioned earlier in this series that I get nervous sometimes over the hyper-romanticism of weddings. All too often that which begins in dreamy splendor ends in the all-too-real sadness of disappointment or divorce. Romantic love is just fine, but it won’t last for the long haul. 1 Corinthians 13 envisions another kind of love,…

1 Corinthians 13 calls us to love like Jesus. Though he is not specifically mentioned in verses 4-7, Jesus is surely the model behind Paul’s exhortation. The love of Jesus is epitomized, most of all, in the cross, in his sacrificial death for our sake. We’re to love based on this model. Of course that’s…

Yesterday I began my investigation of love in 1 Corinthians 13. Today I continue by focusing especially on verses 4-7: Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has…

The specific problem to which 1 Corinthians 13 was addressed concerned the behavior of some Corinthian Christians in the common gatherings and the attitudes attached to that behavior. In a nutshell, some of the Corinthians got very excited about their spiritual abilities, especially the ability to speak in ecstatic, unknown languages – what we call…

I’ll confess to being a softy when it comes to romantic things. I’m not necessarily good at thinking them up and doing them, mind you, but I’m an appreciative observer. I’m a sucker for a romantic film, even a corny and predictable one. I like violins crooning the background and happy endings. But, I must…

READ Psalm 96:1-13   Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise!     He is to be feared above all gods. Psalm 96:4 There are many reasons to praise the Lord. Scripture repeatedly calls us to do it, so we praise God out of obedience (for example, Psalm 96). Praising the Lord often impacts our…

Here are three pictures of my son, Nathan, and his cousin, Dustin, on family vacations. Do you get a sense of déjà vu? Wading in Deep Creek, in the San Bernardino Mountains of California, April 2002. Diving into the Stanislaus River in the Sierra of California, in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, August 2006 Emerging…
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