Jim Novell

I was baptized as an infant into the Roman Catholic Church.  According to Catholic teaching, at the time of my baptism I received what the church referred to as sanctifying “grace”, which resulted in me, as an infant, being born again, restored to spiritual life that was lost due to Adam’s sin, justified – freed […]

The Doobie Brothers were an interesting rock band back in the 1970s.  What I remember most was their hit song, Jesus is Just Alright.  It portrayed our culture’s distorted and minimalist view of Jesus and Christianity quite well.  The Brothers were also prophetic in titling their 1974 album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits,

One of the most wonderfully succinct and encouraging passages in the Bible regarding the glory of God’s grace is found in Exodus 34:5-7, wherein we read: Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping

Grace is one of the most glorious, pervasive and essential truths in the Bible. It is why I am a Christian. And, according to scripture, it is the only reason anyone is a Christian (Ephesians 2:4-5).  I previously wrote on the glory of God’s amazing and abundant grace in my May and June 2020 posts

We have entered the annual season in which we look forward to celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, His coming into this world as a baby conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary by God the Holy Spirit. He was God the Son, the second person of the divine trinity, who would

King David is one of the most prominent, well-known figures in the Bible, mostly for his single-handed defeat of Goliath, whom David, as a young teenager, slayed with a well-placed stone from his slingshot (1 Samuel 17:31-54). Goliath was the gigantic champion warrior of the Philistines, Israel’s arch enemy at that time. Goliath had despised

Sin, Sin, Sin, Sin, Sin, Sin, Sin!  There, I said it seven times to prove that my head would not explode, that lightening would not immediately strike me, nor would I melt like the wicked witch of the West in Wizard of Oz upon saying it.  I noted in my previous post, the aversion to

There is an event that occurs every two years in this nation, in which men and women vie for positions of power from which to govern our nation, states, cities and municipalities. We call them elections. For the months and weeks leading to the elections we endure multi-media ads, mostly on TV and through mailings,

Christians throughout the last 1800-2000 years have trusted the Bible as the inerrant, fully reliable, gracious, God breathed revelation of His truth (2 Timothy 3:16-17), which it is.  However, there have been variations in translations and in a small number of texts, words and phrases, that how caused some to question this.  Experts in Bible

In my cellphone contact list, I have the names and numbers of those whom I regularly have contact with, family and friends, businesses and business acquaintances. These names and numbers show up on my phone when I receive calls from them, or I am calling them.  The person I am happily married to is listed