Christian living – Page 10

Morning Musing: Romans 12:2

September 10, 2025September 10, 2025Leave a comment

“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Our culture professes to value individualism. We see this in all sorts of advertisements. We are constantly told that our buying this or that product will help us stand out from the pack as different. We are told to embrace our individualism and not be like everyone else. The truth, though, is that our culture only tolerates free expression within a pretty tight worldview range. You can do whatever you want as long as it comes out of and expresses a single set of worldview beliefs. Deviate from that, and there’s going to be trouble. The Gospel, though, is different. And if we are going to embrace it, we’re going to have to be different. Really different. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 12:1

September 9, 2025September 9, 2025Leave a comment

“Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I loved calculus. I was kind of…okay…a lot of a nerd in school…and still today…so that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I think it’s because I had a terrific teacher for Calc 1 and 2 in college (and 3 too, but by then I already loved it, so that didn’t matter quite as much) which helped enormously. I think I enjoyed math so much generally because it fits with how I’m wired. There’s generally one way to do a problem and it’s either right or it’s not. In any event, acknowledgment of my weirdness aside, not a few students sitting in an upper level math class like that wonder the same thing: how is any of this ever going to have any practical meaning in my life? In other words, what am I honestly supposed to do with this? Or, more simply, so what? Paul has spent the previous 11 chapters of Romans offering up a lot of theology without much in the way of application. Starting here in Romans 12, he sets about fixing that. Let’s begin the next phase of our journey today: what to do with the Gospel.

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A Simple Conversation

September 8, 2025September 4, 2025Leave a comment

Everybody prays. Every single religion has some version of prayer. Even people who don’t have any particular religion to which they subscribe still report praying at least on occasion. Looking up physically or at least mentally is an incredible natural gesture. Our inherent awareness that there is something bigger than us in this world to which we can turn for help when we need has proven remarkably hard to shake. But as much as everyone prays, one of the main requests pastors get from their members is instruction on how to pray better, how to pray more effectively. Today we are kicking off a brand-new, three-part teaching series aimed at addressing that concern. Let’s talk about prayer, what it is, what it does, and how to get it right.

A Simple Conversation

When kids are little one of the most natural motions for them to make is to reach up. Your kids did it. They may still do it. My kids all did it when they were the right size. Two of them look me in the eye now, so that season has passed, but it wasn’t all that long ago that their reaching up was a normal thing. Why is it that they reached up like they did? Because they wanted up. They wanted to get somewhere higher than they currently were, and into the comfort and safety of your arms. So, they reached up.

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Digging in Deeper: Character Counts

September 5, 2025September 4, 2025Leave a comment

“And he said, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A week ago, I was invited to share a devotional thought with our local high school football team. For something a little different today, here’s some of what I had to say.

Character Counts

Hey guys! Thanks for letting me have a few minutes with you this afternoon. I know there’s food to be enjoyed and football to be played, so I want to quickly do three things. I want to ask you a question, I want to tell you a couple of stories, and I want to talk with you for just a second about what they might mean for us.

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The Assumption of Consumption

August 18, 2025August 12, 2025Leave a comment

When you get some stuff, what is your first thought about it? Do you start planning how you can use it? Save it? Give it? Where does your mind go? How we think about our stuff says a lot about us and where we are in our relationship with Jesus. It can also have a big impact on the size of the world we live in. During His ministry, Jesus was confronted with one particular man’s attitude during a teaching episode and chose to address it directly. Let’s see what Jesus had to say to Him and what it might have to do with us.

The Assumption of Consumption

Kids crack me up. If I think about it, though, kids make me a little sad too. Let me explain. Kids, and especially little kids, offer us the clearest picture we have of what people look like in our rawest form. If you have ever wondered what people are really like, spend some time watching kids. Now, this doesn’t hold universally true because some kids get messed up by their circumstances really early on, but for kids in even relatively healthy situations, they offer a window into the human soul. The reason for this is that kids really don’t have a filter. Whatever they are currently feeling is what comes out. And social conventions don’t mean a thing to them.

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