Month: July 2018

Digging in Deeper: Joshua 5:13-14 Part 2

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“When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand.  And Joshua went to him and said to him, ‘Are you for us, or for our adversaries?’  And he said, ‘No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord.  Now I have come.’  And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, ‘What does my lord say to his servant?'”  ( ESV – Read the chapter)

Now, in the first part of this commentary, I talked about Joshua’s response to the commander of the Lord’s army and our need to submit our plans to the Lord if we want to have any hope of meaningful success.  I said something in that first commentary, though, that bears unpacking here.  I said the appearance of the commander of the Lord’s army changed not just Joshua’s response and the way the rest of the story played out, it also changed our whole framework for understanding it.  Let me explain. Read the rest…

Where Real Freedom Lies

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In this special Fourth of July edition, allow me to share my message from our community patriotic service this past Sunday evening.  Here, with the help of Jesus’ declaration of where real freedom lies, I talk about what freedom is and how we can preserve it for future generations.  Happy Fourth of July!

Where Real Freedom Lies

I have a confession to make: I love the Fourth of July.  Now, I don’t necessarily think I’m more patriotic than anybody else.  I think the reason I love the Fourth of July so much is because growing up my family always made such a big deal out of it.  We’d cook out.  We’d have friends over.  We’d enjoy hanging out with neighbors.  And we’d blow stuff up.  A lot of stuff.  That’s the real reason I love the Fourth of July: I love fireworks. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Judges 17:6

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“In those days there was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This, at last, is the theme of the book and its final assessment.  The people of Israel had fallen to a place where everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes.  When a culture reaches this point, anything goes and most of it isn’t good.  We each became gods unto ourselves and everything becomes a holy crusade as we try to establish our divine fiefdoms at the expense of those around us.  In the end, no one wins. Read the rest…

A Difficult Journey

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In this second part of our series, Hard Sayings, we looked a bit more closely at the hard saying from last week that following Jesus is hard.  Here we have reaffirmed for us the difficulty of remaining faithful over the long haul, but we also get a bit of a reprieve: The rewards are pretty good as well.  Keep reading to see how this unfolds.

A Difficult Journey

When was the last time you did something that was hard, but which left you feeling like you’d done something worthwhile?  That’s a really good feeling, isn’t it?  You work hard, make some sacrifices even, and come out on top.  Like you, I’ve done this kind of thing a few times, but probably the thing that stands out the most to me was learning to play the drums.  I started when I was in seventh grade.  I had played the trumpet in sixth grade, but then I got braces.  Braces and the trumpet do not play well together.  Drums didn’t hurt.  I started taking lessons almost immediately from a teacher in my neighborhood.  That teacher moved.  I found another one.  I didn’t like him at all.  Found a third teacher who was great and stuck with him all the way through high school and into college.  And I practiced.  Much to my parents’…and probably the neighbors’ too…chagrin, I practice a lot.  Then I got to college.  I took more lessons and played with the percussion ensemble.  In fact, I played a lot, not only with the various university ensembles, but I also started playing with different bands including getting to tour and cut a cd with a rock band of some friends when their previous drummer quit. Read the rest…