Category: Personal Growth and Health

Jeremiah – Endurance in Ministry

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Jeremiah was a mighty man of God, a towering figure in the late history of the Kingdom of Judah. He was also considered a traitor to his beleaguered nation at one of the most awful times in their history. How did he endure in ministry over 40 years when it seemed the whole world was against him?

By Mark D. Harris

Prominent anti-Christians argue that religion is dangerous because it creates certainty. Several years ago, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC hosted an exhibit that read “Belief + Doubt = Sanity.” Pressure is overwhelming to “go with the flow.” Confidence in one’s convictions, when they differ from certain politically acceptable convictions of others, is condemned. This censure is so much the stronger when the opinions held seem to contradict “science,” whether or not they do. Someone said, “Few are those who see with their own eyes, think with their own minds, and feel with their own hearts.”

But it is not enough to be certain. Many Christians know the truth and yet do not speak it or practice it. Many think the Truth, speak the Truth, and act in Truth for a season, perhaps several years. But like Demas they start strong and then fade away. Some modern Christian celebrities have renounced their faith. To endure in service is to know, speak, and do, consistently and faithfully, for a lifetime.

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Practicing Gratitude

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Gratitude is one of the keys to a happy life, but it must be practiced. Right teaching, self-sacrifice, and hardship in life often contribute to building gratitude.

By Mark D. Harris

For most of my medical career, I have cared for military members, past and present. Many were impressive. One patient in Schweinfurt, Germany in the late 1990s had climbed Point Du Hoc with the 2nd Ranger Battalion on D-Day. Other patients flew bombing raids over Japan in campaigns led by Hap Arnold and Curtis LeMay. Several fought with MacArthur in Korea. And of course, many had seen combat in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.

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Whence Identity? How do we know who we are?

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We are not our genetics, our color, our sex, our sexual identity, our occupation, or even our family. We are His. A Christian view on how and where we find and build our identity.

By Mark D. Harris

“To be a Turk is to be a Muslim” our Turkish tour guide announced during our tour of the Seven Churches in Revelation. I asked him why he believed that, and he replied that since Allah made him a Turk, clearly Allah intended for him to be a Muslim. Both his logic and his history were faulty. While the descendants of the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks are overwhelmingly Muslim, the modern descendants of the Khazar Turks are largely Jewish. Present-day Gagauz and Chuvash Turks are predominantly Christian.

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The Good, the Bad, and the Complacent

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Every society includes the good, the bad, and the complacent. Isaiah shows us what to be, and how. 

By Mark D. Harris

A small, fractious, religiously dominated country was paying tribute to a rich empire with an advanced military. In a fit of hubris, the oppressed people stopped sending their wagonloads of gold, hoping that a neighboring nation would come to their aid. The empire mobilized its forces and defeated the weak intervening armies of the neighboring nation. It then turned its greedy eyes and vengeful hands on the rebels.

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Living While Dead

~ MD Harris Institute ~ 3 Comments

To strive is human, but give up the ambitions and worries of this world, seeking only God, is to have life as He intends.

By Mark D. Harris

Our church regularly performs Infant Dedication, a ceremony in which the parents dedicate themselves publicly to raise their child as a Christian and the congregation dedicates itself to supporting the parents in this holy work. Parents choose a special verse for their child, one intended to guide them in the ways of Christ through their lives. Psalm 23:1, Jeremiah 29:11, John 3:16, and Philippians 4:13 are popular.

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Encountering God

~ MD Harris Institute ~ 1 Comment

As we approach death, we realize that only an encounter with God is big enough to save us from despair. Too bad we don’t realize that earlier. And how do we encounter Him?

By Mark D. Harris

When children are young, their world is little bigger than their neighborhood; their home, their school, their friends’ houses, and their church. When people reach young adulthood, their world expands, perhaps even to encompass the whole globe. Slowly though, muscles weaken and eyes get foggy. Women lose their ability to conceive, and hair grays. At those moments, pensive people begin to truly understand that though the world will not leave them, they will leave the world. While little children anchor themselves in their parents and young adults in career and family, the aged realize that these anchors will not hold.

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