Month: September 2017

Morning Musings: 2 Chronicles 26:16

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“But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction.  For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Uzziah’s punishment can seem awfully big in light of his apparent offense.  I mean, he burned a bit of incense in the Temple.  Why should that have drawn a punishment of leprosy?  But, the light external offense was only a symptom of the much more dangerous internal issue.  As faithful as he had been throughout his reign as king, he eventually started to see himself as the source of that success.  Once he did this, his downfall was nigh.  <!–more Read the rest…–>

This poses a stern reminder for all of us.  The perils of success are great.  We should run after it with all we have, but if we begin worshiping it as our god, it will lead to our doom.  We never escape the necessity of being wary of this temptation.  Pride, or a belief that we are sufficient in and of ourselves for, really, anything, will always eventually lead to our undoing, and not only ours, but often for all the people who have attached themselves to our wagon as well.  This is never pretty.  Instead, let us always remember who is God and remain humbly reliant on Him; constantly aware that apart from Him we are nothing.

Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 22:1

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“A good name is to  be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.”  (ESV)

One of the memories from my childhood that will always stick with me is a picture that hung in the hallway of the house where I grew up.  It had a picture of my dad’s dad (whom I never met), a picture of my dad, and a picture of me.  Next to the pictures, in its own space, was a poem.  I never knew who wrote it, and some digging on the internet has revealed more than one version attributed to more than one author.  The version that hung on the wall goes like this:  Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 2 Corinthians 1:9

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“Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.  But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

One of the questions that has haunted humans since sin entered into the world is why bad things happen.  How do we reconcile the presence of evil in the world with our innate sense that the world was designed to be good?  For those who have heard the Christian claims of a God who is perfectly loving and all-powerful at one and the same time this challenge becomes even more acute.   Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 2 Corinthians 1:4

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“…who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Why does God comfort us?  Why does He extend any grace to us?  Well, the first answer is that He does it because He is gracious.  It is in His nature to do this for us.  The fuller answer and the one to which Paul is pointing here is that He does it so that we can pass along the blessing to other people.

God always acts in the best interest of the other.  His love always moves outward to find an object.  When that love is poured out on us regardless of the form it happens to take, it is intended not to stay with us, but to be poured out on still others.   Read the rest…

Test Every Spirit

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In this past Sunday’s installment of A Word on Reality, we paused with John to be reminded once again how we can know what’s true and what’s not.  In a world that is awash in different voices claiming to have the corner of the truth market, how do we figure out which voices are worth heeding and which are to be tossed out with the garbage?  Keep reading to find out…

 

Test Every Spirit

If I were to ask you what the fastest growing religious affiliation in this country is according to recent survey data, what would you guess it to be?  Let’s take a look at the broad categories starting with the group “religious, Christian.”  From 1990-2008 the number of adults identifying themselves as part of a mainline Christian denomination (most Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopals, Lutherans, and the like) in the U.S. shrank by about 10%, or a total loss of 3.5 million members.  The number of Baptists grew by about 6% or a little over two million people.  Folks identifying themselves as either Pentecostals or simply nondenominational of some sort grew by 40% and 25%, respectively.  And, just to round things out, the number of Catholics grew about 25%, although most of that was from immigration, not conversion.   Read the rest…