Resources by Baker, Al

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. (James 4:8) I regularly marvel at the Apostle Paul’s devotion and zeal for the gospel in light of the myriad of discouragements and disappointments he encountered. Shortly after his conversion on the road to Damascus the Jewish believers were uncertain about this former persecutor. […]

Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marvelling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13) We all know that Peter had been an abject coward. While Peter was standing by the fire, as Jesus was on […]

Are you the Coming One, or shall we look for someone else? (Luke 7:19) I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (John 14:6) There are at least three questions that often surface in today’s contemporary world concerning the person of Jesus: Was Jesus an impostor who did not fulfil Messianic prophesies? Are Christianity’s […]

PART I Thy word is truth. (John 17:17) So many today have so many different views about Jesus. Who is the contemporary Christ? Some view him as a mythical figure, a sort of modern day Robin Hood or Santa Claus, one akin to the tooth fairy. Others believe that he was a wonderful, compassionate man, […]

If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Cor. 15:19)1 So think of it like this – if the disciples and these three women were travelling around the countryside telling people that Jesus had been raised from the dead, when he really had […]

It was a turn of events from God. (2 Chronicles 10:15). In his book, Already Gone: Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it, author Ken Ham cites a survey that says two-thirds of evangelical young people will leave church by their early twenties.1 Surprisingly, Ham has found that […]

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God. (James 4:4) For good or ill, without question our children imitate us. What they see in us – our values, actions, and speech – significantly influence them. After giving four reasons for the quarrels and conflicts we face in our […]

He has risen; he is not here. (Mark 16:6)1 Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus. Why do Christians say that? Because the Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly prophesied it, both directly and through typology! King David said that God would not allow his Holy One to undergo decay, to see hell or what the […]

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:2a-3) In the context of our ministry here in West Hartford, I live with a constant two-fold state of desperation and hope. At least […]

If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city, has not the Lord done it? (Amos 3:6) The mammoth earthquake, 9.0 on the Richter scale, that struck northern Japan on March 11, and the ensuing tsunami, captured so dreadfully and spectacularly on video, has, […]

Do not love the world. (1 John 2:15) It is no coincidence that the men whom God uses powerfully in the work of his kingdom always have one thing in common. This is true with the early church fathers – men like Irenaeus, Origen, and Polycarp. And this one thing in common is also found […]

The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:18) Are you presently living with a sense of hopelessness, a sort of low grade depression where you tend to speak in negative absolutes? For example, do you say, ‘My marriage will never get better. God never answers my […]

Now gird up your loins like a man, and I will ask you, and you instruct Me! (Job 38:3) After Elihu, the fourth of troubled Job’s friends, exhorts him to consider the glory and wonder of God and his providence, the Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind. God did the same with Elijah (1 […]

Only be strong and courageous. (Joshua 1:7) We seem to be like the proverbial frog in the pan of water on the stove. As the water is slowly heated the frog is unaware of his perilous condition until it is too late and he is boiled to his death. We seem to be like fish […]

How blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. (Psalm 84:5) In the summer of 2008 our staff and wives enjoyed a two day retreat at a house in upstate New York. On our first afternoon there we all drifted peacefully down the Batten Kill, a […]

But someone may well say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ (James 2:18) With some fifty percent of Americans claiming to have had a born again experience, and with thirty percent saying they are evangelicals1 should we not expect a mighty societal impact resulting in a more just society, the abolition of abortion, the […]

You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22) One of the more relevant issues on the college campus today is gender identification. A growing number of young men and women are wrestling with their gender. The recent repeal by Congress of the ‘Don’t Ask, […]

Watch over your own heart with diligence, for from it flows the springs of life. (Proverbs 4:23) I have known men who began well, who began their careers and families with a steadfast commitment to honour God, to be faithful to their wives and children, and to keep a lid on their fleshly desires. Sadly, […]

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. (Joshua 1:8) Things began unravelling with frightening […]

Yes, it is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he who will bear the honour and sit and rule on his throne. Thus, he will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two offices. (Zechariah 6:13) One of my favorite books is entitled […]

. . . often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented thus far). (Rom. 1:13) Steve Johnson, a wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills, dropped five passes recently [Nov 28, 2010] in a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The most damaging drop, however, occurred in overtime when he dropped a perfectly […]

Again he measured a thousand cubits, and it was a river that I could not ford, for the water has risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be forded. (Ezek. 47:5) I have travelled countless times over the dam at Jinja, Uganda, the source of the Nile River, on my way […]

And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. (Acts 2:3) If Brett McCracken’s observation is correct – that seventy per cent of those age eighteen to twenty-two, who grew up in the church, leave it never to return again,1 then surely we can agree […]

Become doers of the word. (James 1:22) Jean Jacques Rousseau, one of the major architects of the French Enlightenment and consequently the French Revolution, was born in Geneva in 1712. He grew up in a Calvinist home and attended church regularly, later converting to Roman Catholicism so that he could stay in the good graces […]

For the promise is for you and your children. (Acts 2:39) My wife was recently walking in a West Hartford park and met a young mother with her two children. As Wini struck up a conversation with the mom it was clear that she was exhausted from the demands of motherhood. Wini then used one […]