We used to have a real woodstove. We heated with wood the first winter we lived here. The stove was not an efficient heater so we burned a lot of wood. The next year we installed a furnace and the stove was removed.

I missed the glow of a fire so I installed a corner fireplace that simulates a fire. If I use my imagination when it is on, I can almost hear the pop, sizzle, and crackle of a real wood fire.

There's an interesting, and perhaps alarming, trend developing with our youth/teens today. More than ever teens are deriving most of their values, beliefs and direction from Facebook. The social networking giant has revolutionized many different aspects of our daily lives; advertising, communication and dating. Yet, through all the positive development we have to ask the question "Who's getting lost in all this change?"

Somebody’s made a payment on my credit card.

Risking sounding like Goldilocks, that was my conclusion after going over my monthly credit card statement.

There it was: the amount of the generous payment, even the check number.

Perhaps I had made a payment and had forgotten to record it. This wouldn't have been the first time. But now the porridge thickened; this check number wasn’t the same as any I had written.

This unexpected windfall seemed too good to be true. And, of course, it was.

Six words changed Martin Luther's life and gave him a distinguished place in history: The just shall live by faith (Romans 1:17). Biblical writers repeated those words in three other texts, underscoring their importance.

Luther learned that the life that counts not only begins but continues in faith. His discovery of this principle, appearing in his writings, later brought faith to John Wesley, who birthed the Methodist church and through him to millions of others.