Sam Hardman Imagine being responsible for feeding twenty-three thousand orphans in a poverty-stricken country at a time when many parts of the global food supply chain are broken. Imagine being one of those orphans. This is no mere thought exercise. It’s happening right now in Nicaragua. The ORPHANetwork, a Christian ministry that works with churches …
Author: Sam Hardman
Sam Hardman How is it that we so readily fall prey to lust? Presumably we don’t wake up in the morning plotting how we might engage in lustful thoughts and lust-producing actions. Lust catches us unawares and just happens, so it seems. At least that’s how we may excuse ourselves. But is that really how …
Sam Hardman When we encounter things that we believe to be objectionable – ideas, images, music, film, etc. – how should we respond? In my most recent sermon I said something that is open to misunderstanding and that I want to clarify. The text I was speaking on was Romans 12:1-2 in which, among other …
Sam Hardman The old adage, “absence makes the heart grow fonder,” is certainly not invariably true. Nonetheless it does convey a real insight about something deeply embedded in our world. Sometimes it takes the absence – or loss – of something, or someone, to reveal to our self-centered hearts the goodness that the person or …
Sam Hardman I have an image in my mind that, I think, serves as a sort of metaphor for where we are right now. We have a delightful UPS delivery man who is unfailingly pleasant and friendly. Always smiling. He seems to have a fountain of joy in his heart and perhaps he does. But …
Sam Hardman Spiritual alertness is necessary at all times, but perhaps especially in times like these. Anxiety is high, we have to work harder at staying connected with people who help us to maintain spiritual stability, and so much of what we want to know about what’s going on in the external environment is shrouded …
Sam Hardman Why am I here? Why now? Why in this time and place? I could have been born into some peasant family in ancient Gaul. Or not born at all. Why here and now? If God has called me by his grace and placed me into Christ, that fact alone gives me a sense …
Sam Hardman “And they lived happily ever after.” What response do those words conjure in your soul? For the littlest children – and perhaps among the ever-diminishing number of older children whose home lives have been full of love and security – they evoke a pleasurable satisfaction. A natural sense of “this is right and …
Sam Hardman You who are both David’s Son and David’s Lord, how greatly we need Your mercy! The inclination of our hearts to twist Your word in devilish self-service – to exonerate ourselves while we judge others – is so strong and deep. How often we linger in disobedience when we long since should have …
Sam Hardman “…have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living….” (Mark 12:26-27) Resurrection – …