Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Mark 1:1-3

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“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you; he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite musicals of all time starts like this: “Let’s start at the very beginning; a very good place to start. When you read you begin with A-B-C; when you sing you begin with…” Can you finish that? Do-re-mi. That, of course, is from The Sound of Music and Julie Andrews’ truly iconic voice. I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings lately. Specifically, as I have been leading my church through the first part of the book of Acts, I have been thinking about the beginning of the Gospel. How did it start and how does it start in our lives? That’s a very good question to ask and one we are going to be asking together here in our next journey together. I hope you’ll come along with me.

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Morning Musing: James 1:12

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“Blessed is the one who endures trials, because when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes life is hard. I’ll preach a funeral service today for a good and godly man. This will be the third funeral I’ve been a part of in the last two weeks. That’s three mourning families. Two were guys for whom you could have said, “It was their time,” (although that never makes the loss sting any less). One makes you want to rage against the injustice of a broken world. Sometimes life is hard. How do we handle it?

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Morning Musing: Romans 7:18

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“For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

So, last night our air conditioner broke. We discovered this about bedtime. The night before our oldest had his first day of school. Joy. My lovely bride had observed the house felt warm earlier in the evening, and I, being the loving and considerate husband that I am, ignored her because I was comfortable. Now, in my defense, we couldn’t have done anything about it anyway, but it was definitely not one of my finer moments as a husband. That being said, the real issue was a lack of air. Fortunately, we have two units and so could just move everybody sleeping downstairs upstairs for the night. Do you know what wouldn’t have worked? Pretending everything was fine and sleeping like we normally do.

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Morning Musing: Philippians 3:8

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“More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ…”‬ ‭(CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

What are you most proud of in this life? What is your prized possession? Those may or may not be the same thing, but that doesn’t matter right now. What is it that gets you the most excited? What if you lost all of that? Is there anything that could salve the wound and make it better? Would you ever be okay again without it? Paul here gives us the assurance that you could be. In fact, if you would count yourself a follower of Jesus, you should be.

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Morning Musing: Philippians 2:5-8

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“Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death–even to death on a cross.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Yesterday, we talked about something that could completely changed the world if we put it into practice: Putting others first and ourselves second. If we just took that one idea and ignored the rest of the Scriptures, our world would never be the same and infinitely better than it is now. But doing that kind of thing seems extreme beyond the pale. I mean, who really has done that kind of thing in a way that mattered? And besides, as we finished up asking, what if the interests of the people around us are contrary to our own? Paul realizes these instructions were pretty big to try and follow and so he goes on to offer an example. It’s a pretty good example. Let’s look at it.

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