Tag: Blessings

The Blessings Flow Out

Leave a comment

This week we are kicking off a brand-new teaching series for the summer. When Jesus invited people into God’s kingdom, He didn’t stop there. For those who were interested, He gave them a clear and compelling vision of what life in His kingdom would look like. While we get bits and pieces of this grand vision in various places throughout the Gospels, the apostle Matthew gathers the largest and most comprehensive presentation of it in one place in the Sermon on the Mount. For the next few weeks, we are going to be exploring the Sermon on the Mount together in order to see what life in God’s kingdom is really like. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

The Blessings Flow Out

I went to college at a really interesting time. I landed at our Baptist Student Union in a season with a whole bunch of really forward-thinking student leaders and an incredible campus minister. One of the ministries that was created during this season was a seeker-oriented service on Thursday nights called Damascus Road, that was designed specifically for non-believers. It was aimed at getting them interested in the Gospel. Now, I know that we are several years’ removed from the height of the seeker-sensitive church model, and I am well aware of some of its most pressing weaknesses including inviting people into a watered-down version of the faith. With this in mind, we actually created a second service on Tuesday nights called Fuel, that was unapologetically Chrisitan in its framing. It was just a worship service. We used Damascus Road to serve as a funnel to Fuel, and saw several people come to faith by that approach over the four years I was there.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Exodus 23:10-12

Leave a comment

“Sow your land for six years and gather its produce. But during the seventh year you are to let it rest and leave it uncultivated, so that the poor among your people may eat from it and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive Grove. Do your work for six days but rest on the seventh day so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave as well as the resident alien may be refreshed.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things we ask God for are blessings. We all want to be blessed by God. We want our nation to be blessed by Him. At a recent community prayer event a member of my church sang a beautiful rendition of “God Bless America.” We want to enjoy His abundance. And, our God is a blessing God, so that’s a good and right thing for us to ask for. But the thing we don’t understand as well both at all and in terms of its implications is that God’s blessings are always directional. God is always thinking about and aiming for the other. We see a pretty good example of this character on display here in a couple of laws that don’t seem to have anything to do with this. Let’s talk about another reason for Sabbath.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Psalm 34:1-3

2 Comments

“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. I will boast in the Lord; the humble will hear and be glad. Proclaim the Lord’s greatness with me; let us exalt his name together.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

How are you supposed to be happy when everything is falling apart around you? Let’s face it: The news that keeps coming out about the coronavirus isn’t good. The number of cases grows every day. The number of deaths goes up too. More and more states and nations are shutting down…everything…in their attempts to limit the human contact responsible for the virus’ spread. All of the things to which we would normally turn to distract us from bad news are being shut down as well. How do we avoid falling into the trap of perpetual negativity and despair?

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 1 Corinthians 2:9

Leave a comment

“But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’–”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

I love this verse.  Here’s how good our God is: We cannot even imagine all the good things he has planned for us.  We cannot even fathom them.  Some of them, perhaps, have not even been invented yet.  And God is prepared for them. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 1:5

Leave a comment

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Here’s an important principle that radiates from the pages of the New Testament: If we do what Jesus did, we will experience what Jesus did.  Put another way: If we walk the path Jesus did, we will receive what Jesus did.  This is at one and the same time incredibly challenging and also incredibly encouraging. Read the rest…