Month: August 2017

Morning Musings: Ecclesiastes 5:1-2

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“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.  To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.  Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth.  Therefore let your words be few.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Recognizing their absence of faithful works, many people think that faithful words will suffice.  And for a while this seems to be the case.  People hear our words and ascribe us honor because of them.  We boast of great things we would do for God.  This eventually becomes boasting of great things we are doing for God and boasts of great acts of faithfulness.  We promise the moon…but wind up delivering only a reflection.  In the end, we have only handfuls of empty promises that leave God disappointed with us and people disillusioned by us.  It is better to let our actions do the talking.

Morning Musings: Ecclesiastes 4:6

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“Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

We live in a culture in which money is everything.  Being rich is the chief end of man.  For indeed, when you are rich you are freed from the worries and burdens of the world.  You can enjoy the pleasures of life more freely and fully.  You need not fear when storms rise up.  Right???

Not even close, but the illusion here is of the most potent power there is and so we strive and toil and chase after the wind, hoping after a life most of us will never obtain.  And for what?  In the end, we are too tired to enjoy what we do have and we look on it with contempt anyway because it is not more.

This is vanity and futility and ultimately worthless.  Solomon is right.  It is better to have less and enjoy it more, than to have two hands full while yet never being able to enjoy it.  Find contentment in what you have and the life that you are living with Jesus and you will always have enough.  Serve the Lord faithfully in your present circumstances and they will always leave you satisfied.  Receive with gladness what He gives and use it faithfully, but make the getting an aim secondary to the faithfulness.

Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 6:9-10

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“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

– ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭6:9-10

Two things here.  First, the list of sinful behaviors pursued unrepentantly which will keep us from access to the kingdom of God is long and varied.  There are many, many ways to separate ourselves off from God, some of them large and obvious, some of them small and easy to hide.  In some ways it is better to be caught up in a big, obvious sin, because then everybody knows you are doing wrong and you can be called to account more easily.  Sometimes the smaller, more culturally acceptable and easy-to-overlook sins can be deadly traps because we don’t believe we are doing anything worthy of repentance or needing of forgiveness all the while we are on a road headed directly out of a relationship with God.  That’s the easy part.  

Second, this is one of the few passages in the Scriptures that specifically mentions the sinfulness of homosexual sexual interactions.  Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 1 Corinthians 7:20

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“Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This verse fairly well serves as the theme for the whole second half of chapter 7 here.  Paul’s point over the course of a number of different examples is that we can serve God in whatever state in which we currently find ourselves.  God can and will take us wherever we are.  There are no circumstances in which we cannot advance His kingdom into the world around us in ways both big and small.   Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Proverbs 20:4

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“The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.”  (ESV)

One of the principles that comes out over and over again in the proverbs is the importance of working hard.  Being lazy and relying on others to work for you is not the way to life.

While many today have internalized the mantra that they are “working for the weekend,” and that the real goal of life is to be able to relax and pursue a life of ease (often in retirement), the Scriptures proclaim a different approach.   Read the rest…