When Deb and I were newly married, we rented a little house in the student housing section at Hardin-Simmons. It was an old army barracks that they had brought in there, but it was a haven to us as a young couple.
There was a man who was telling a deacon of his church one day, “The church just costs too much! We have these nice facilities, a pastoral staff, and are always doing things for the community. Why do we have to spend so much money?”
I saw a news story not long ago about some of the poverty in many portions of our nation. The reporter went into some of the roughest areas of some American cities to see how many of these people, who had absolutely nothing at all, lived their lives. And as they were interviewing some of these people, my heart was so heavy. None of them, it seemed, had any purpose in life.
Augustine, the famed theologian and philosopher, was a very carnal young man, often frequenting houses of prostitution. So when he came to know Christ as his Savior, he was dramatically transformed and changed by the power of God.
I’ll never forget being awakened one night by a call from one of our best friends at church. She was sobbing uncontrollably. So Deb and I got on the phone together and she told us that her husband – one of my very best friends and a leader in our church – was abandoning his family and running off with a 19-year-old girl.
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