Digging in Deeper: Romans 6:10-12

“For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I’m going to ask you a question about which I want you to be totally honest with me. In fact, I don’t want you to answer immediately. I want you to think about it for a second. Then, I want you to raise your hand in the air if the answer is yes. No, really, raise your hand. Commit to your answer. If you’re by yourself, no one will see it; and if you’re in public, it’ll just look like you’re stretching. (If you’re reading this in class, you might want to raise two hands to disguise it a little better…and also stop reading this in class and pay attention to your teacher.) Are you ready now? Here goes: Do you struggle with sin?

Okay, survey time: How many of you raised your hand? I suspect it wasn’t just a few. But, in doing that, some of you are lying to me. In fact, I might even go so far as to say many of you are. You can’t fairly characterize your interaction with sin as a struggle because there really isn’t any struggle. When sin comes calling, you go right along with it. Maybe there’s a brief flash of resistance, but that doesn’t last long. What I want to talk about this morning with you is how to actually struggle with sin and why it will eventually become no struggle at all.

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Morning Musing: Proverbs 25:21-22

“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s hard to find something to watch on television these days. No really, I mean it. It’s hard to find something to watch on TV. How can I say that? I mean, I know in terms of sheer volume there is more content being produced and released nowadays than anyone could watch even over the course of an entire lifetime, but that’s exactly the point. There is so much content available, it’s hard to choose one thing that’s really worth watching. How do you pick then? There’s always the approach of choosing something at random, watching for a few minutes to evaluate, and then sticking with it or moving on. You usually wind up sifting through a lot of junk by that method. A sometimes better approach is to listen to the hype. That doesn’t work for some things, but usually the best content gets the most hype. I recently went with that approach and was rewarded with a fantastic new show to watch that I can recommend heartily (with a caveat). This morning I want to tell you about Ted Lasso.

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Morning Musing: 2 Peter 1:8

“For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter

I want to matter. I want for my life to count for something. That desire pulses deep with every beat of my heart. If I were a betting kind of man, I’d bet that you feel this too. While it may manifest itself in different ways, this desire burns at the heart of every single one of us. We want to be able to look back on our lives at some point and be able to say: I accomplished something of value to this world. One of our deepest fears is meaninglessness. Anything that helps at least sort of scratch this itch gets our attention. Given that, what Peter says here should have us rapt with it. 

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A Letter to My Sons

This past Sunday was Father’s Day. As a dad myself, it was a chance to get a bit reflective. What would I tell my three boys if I had the chance? Here’s what I said.

A Letter to My Sons

There are occasions in our lives that prompt us to do some deep thinking.  For me at least, days like today are one of those times.  As I was preparing for this morning, I began thinking about what I would like to say to my sons if I had the chance.  You know, one of those deep, parental wisdom speeches that they won’t want to sit and listen to until I’m lying on my death bed and they’re hanging on my every word.  As I grow in my experience as a parent and Noah and Josiah and Micah grow up some of what I have to say to them will probably change, but hopefully not much.  As it turns out, there isn’t children’s church scheduled for today which means they’re stuck in here and have to listen to this.  Well…I can’t make them listen—when I figure that out I’ll let you know just after I patent it and retire—but they’re at least going to be in the room while I’m saying it.  Anyway, as something a bit different this morning, I’ll let you in my head and heart for a few minutes and then we’ll all go out and celebrate Father’s Day together. 

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