Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Matthew 16:24-25

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“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Christianity is a religion of paradoxes. It is a worldview filled with ideas that seem on their face to not make any sense. We claim things as true that a little bit of thought suggests aren’t even remotely true. A little more thought, though, reveals them to be firmly grounded in reality after all. As we move this morning to another lie the world tells us, let’s take a look at some of these paradoxes, starting with this one.

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Morning Musing: Ephesians 1:4

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“For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Do you remember Magic Eye books? They had a brief surge of popularity when I was growing up. Each picture looked like some kind of a random, repeating pattern of shapes and images when you just glanced at it. But if you looked at it just right, all of a sudden, there was something else there. I remember getting a book when I was little and spending hours trying to master the technique of seeing the hidden image. The standard approach is to hold the image right up to your nose and pull it away slowly while trying to look through it. When you got to just the right distance, your eyes would begin to perceive the depth of the 3D image hiding beneath the pattern. I finally figured out my own technique which is to cross my eyes and then slowly uncross them. What got me thinking about Magic Eye images this morning is what Paul wrote here in his opening comments in his letter to the Ephesian church. Most folks who look at it see one thing, but as I was spending some time with it recently, I saw in it something just a bit deeper. Let me share with you what I saw.

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Morning Musing: 1 John 4:19

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“We love because he first loved us.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Did you ever have a free period in high school? Personally, I never did. We had a kind of study hall block every other day which probably came pretty close, but being part of the band nerd group, most of us checked in with our actual Home Room teachers and then went immediately to hang out together in the band room where we mostly all sat around doing homework. A real free period, though, gives you the chance to do fairly well whatever you want (within reason, of course). Well, this morning is a bit of a free period for me. I didn’t preach yesterday and so I don’t have a sermon to share. We’ll start a new teaching series next Sunday about which I’m pretty excited. Stay tuned for that. Instead, then, I’m going to share a few different thoughts and we’ll see where that takes us. Here’s what’s on my mind this morning.

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Morning Musing: Psalm 100:4-5

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“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Thirty-nine trips around the sun. That’s what today marks for me. That’s nearly 40. Forty used to be a milestone birthday. I’m not really sure if it is anymore. In Psalm 90, Moses talks about people living an average of 70 to 80 years which makes 40 the halfway mark. But, our current lifespan in the U.S. is just shy of 78 which technically means I’m officially past middle age in this country. That’s a bit too depressing a thought for this early in the morning, though (I started writing this well before the sun), so we’ll stick with 40 and move on. There are a few times in a given year that invite a bit more introspection than usual. For me, birthdays tend to be one of those times. So, at the risk of being self-indulgent, allow me to reflect a bit on what I know at 39.

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Morning Musing: 1 John 4:15-16

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“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God – God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When I was in college I took a course in logic. I enjoyed most of it, probably because it was an intro course and didn’t delve in too deeply to the subject. If you go much past the surface, the study of logic can quickly begin to look like something out of an advanced calculus course with Ps and Qs and Rs and a variety of other letters and strange symbols and the like. At a basic level, though, it is good to learn how to both recognize and make good arguments. At the very beginning of the class, though, one of the first things you learn are some of the basic laws of logic. These laws appear more places than you might realize, especially in math. Now, I don’t even begin to suggest I understand any of this well enough to try and tell you much about it. But I at least recognize some of them still when I see them. One of these basic laws is called the transitive property. Why am I bringing all of this up today? Because it’s what John uses in his letter here and the implications are worth some attention.

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