[…]Join us! So let me once again ask, How is your Christ light shining in the places where He has you right now? If it’s dim, shout out and let OCF help rekindle its brightness. If it’s bright–use it to illuminate the paths of others toward Him who paid the ultimate price for […]
[…]operation of the ship’s guns. Already deployed for two months off the coast of Somalia, we were now in the slack period that inevitably comes after the initial thrill of heading overseas. The long, uneventful watches were catching up with the crew. Memories of home grew rosier as the weeks dragged by. Modern-Day Jonah It was my first deployment–far different than merely venturing away from home as I’d done before. Key among the differences was the absence of a “real church,” the kind that I grew up with. A lay leader directed church services on Sundays, but it seemed like […]
[…]taxes. However, when you sell it you will also have to pay some of that back to the IRS because it now counts as income, costing a homeowner more than $10,000 in taxes after the sale of a property. Myth #5: I can deduct the interest from my mortgage on my taxes This makes the least sense of all the myths. You can indeed deduct a portion of your interest (interest x tax rate = deduction). But you are losing $8,000 a year by essentially paying the bank $10,000 a year to avoid paying the IRS $2,000. Investing in rental […]
[…]to ask of visiting senior leaders, especially general officers, was “What are you reading right now?” That open-ended inquiry was usually quite telling as to how engaged those leaders were in their own continuing growth and professional development. Those who said they were too busy to read had let the tyranny of the urgent capture them. The ones who were engaged impressed me with the breadth and depth of what they were reading. Some even suggested that it was imperative that senior leaders make time to read. One area of study and practice that has always been important to me […]
[…]fullness of His Kingdom, will we be free to lay aside–for all time–the weapons with which we now defend peace. In the meantime, in my office I have a precious reminder of this comforting Messianic promise. It is a weapon– turned tool– now retired. Robert Stroud is a Lutheran pastor who serves as a chaplain in the United States Air Force. His father, Sergeant Major Charles Stroud, a veteran of Korea and Vietnam, retired from the United States Marine Corps. Charles Alley served in the Fifth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry, the same regiment as Chaplain Stroud’s great grandfather. Stroud hosts a […]
[…]accept it, settled forever those holy demands. Saved, redeemed by his blood, washed white as the snow by the Lamb, No longer by sin and its wages caught, His child now forever I am. The closing verses refer to that marvelous passage in Isaiah, “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isa. 1:18). Simple faith and trust in the Master’s Word brings eternal salvation, forgiveness of sins and life everlasting in glory with […]
![Cover 1 USNA IMG_20171003_204807912[12] copy 3](https://www.ocfusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Cover-1-USNA-IMG_20171003_20480791212-copy-3-150x150.jpg "3: The Ministry Pillars of OCF")
