Wooden cross on a rocky cliff during a lightning storm over rough ocean waters.

Good Friday 2026

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Today is Good Friday. It’s the day we remember with joy and gladness the greatest injustice ever perpetrated by humans. Why would such a thing prompt joy and gladness in us? Because that gross injustice was the death of the God the Son, and by His sacrificial death, our sins were covered, making possible a right relationship with God. This is a day to reflect on our sin with repentant hearts. It is a day to reflect with soberness on the seriousness of sin and the lengths our God went to remove it as an obstacle to our being with Him. At my church we always have a special service on Good Friday, and this year will be no different. Here’s part of what I will say to the group tonight. Blessings on your day.

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Glistening futuristic city with tall spires floating in clouds above a planet's surface.

Morning Musing: Philippians 3:20-21

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“Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Believers and unbelievers are not the same. Yes, we are all still people. We are equally created in the image of God and are both inestimably valuable because of that. Jesus died for both groups. God loves us the same. But the former group have been transformed by the grace of God into citizens of heaven while the latter are still in the flesh and denizens of this world. Their trajectories are not the same, nor are their ends. Having talked about the latter yesterday, let’s join Paul today as he reflects a bit about the former.

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Silhouette of a man kneeling in prayer on a hilltop during a vibrant sunset.

Morning Musing: Philippians 3:18-19

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“For I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame; and they are focused on earthly things.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Paul’s was really passionate about leading people to Jesus. He was convinced beyond measure of the truthfulness of the Gospel, of the reasonableness of the Christian worldview. He vividly remembered the other side, and intimately understood the contrast between the two. He didn’t want anyone to be stuck living forever like he once was and was willing to go through just about anything to keep them from that so far as it depended on him. But he was also honest about the fact that not everyone was going to come around. The us-and-them divide was real. In the next few verses he contrasts one with the other. Let’s take a look starting with the latter.

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Group of hikers walking on a trail toward the rising sun in a valley.

Morning Musing: Philippians 3:17

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“Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Who is your model? Who is the person whose life yours is most lived in imitation of? A parent? A grandparent? A friend? Some celebrity? Here’s a better question: are your efforts at imitation intentional or unconscious? Everybody has somebody whose life is the pattern they are seeking to match whether they realize it or not. If you don’t know who your person is, that means you are doing it unconsciously which means it may be a person you don’t want to be modeling. Here’s one more question: who is using your life as a model? Paul offers us an example here that is worth considering. Let’s do that.

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Digging in Deeper: Acts 17:28

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“For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the errors Christians sometimes make is in thinking there’s nothing redeeming about the world at all. While we are to reject the world and its ways, the people in it were still created in God’s image even if they don’t recognize that. And, as bearers of God’s image, they will occasionally stumble across truth and get something right. This is usually accidental, but even as a broken clock is right twice a day, so the world sometimes gets it right. I was reminded of this in a recent episode of Abbott Elementary. Let me tell you how.

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