Month: March 2018

Morning Musings: Proverbs 31:30

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“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

We live in a day in which the physical is everything.  Spiritual matters are forgotten or ignored.  We apply this trend not only to things, but to people.  We are told over and over again–mostly subliminally through the images we are surrounded with on a daily basis–that how we look is the most important thing about us.  Sure, we throw a bone at the idea that the inside matters, but this is routinely just lip service.  What the Scriptures proclaim, though, is something different. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 45:22

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“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!  For I am God, and there is no other.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Did you know that your thumb is bigger than a house?  Don’t believe me?  Next time you go outside, find a house or any other building around you.  Once you’ve located just the right one, close one eye and hold your thumb up in front of the open one.  Now, move it in a bit closer.  Closer still.  Just a bit more.  Magically, the house is gone and all you can see is your thumb.  If you can’t see the house when your thumb is in front of it, your thumb must be bigger right? Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Proverbs 31:10

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“An excellent wife who can find?  She is far more precious than jewels.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The Scriptures are often pegged as being anti-woman.  They create a world in which women are expected to be submissive to their men, serve their men, support their men, and basically go with and do whatever they say.  They are not to have any roles in the church, but are to be there and be silent.  They aren’t seen as leadership material at all either.  At least, that’s how the narrative often goes.  And then you actually read what it has to say… Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: John 3:3

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“Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

One of my favorite ideas about God (and one I think is entirely true) comes from G.K. Chesterton in his book, Orthodoxy.  Here it is:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged.  They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.  For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.  But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.  It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daises alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

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Morning Musings: Revelation 7:9-10

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“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This is really an incredible picture, and a challenging one for the modern church.  John hears the sound of the famed 144,000, but when he turns he sees a great multitude of people from every nation, tribe, people, and language gathered before the throne of God and giving Him praise.  What John sees here is a picture of the church universal gathered for worship. Read the rest…