Tag: Christian living

Morning Musing: Romans 10:4

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“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes…” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s hard to know what something is unless you know what it’s for. But if you get what it is for wrong, you’ll get what it is wrong too. Perhaps the best illustration of this comes from Scuttle the seagull in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. When Ariel brings him a fork, he identifies it as a “dinglehopper,” used by humans for doing their hair. Among followers of Jesus there is an occasionally robust debate about the purpose of the Law of Moses in light of Christ and His ministry. Paul gives us an important clue here. Let’s talk about it.

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Living in a Big World

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Sometimes the world feels small. Everywhere we go, things feel crowded and cramped. We know vastly more about the world and what’s happening in it than we did a generation ago. In fact, sometimes we know what’s happening on the far side of the world than we do with our own neighbors. Sometimes we know more about the former than we do about what’s happening in our own house. We want space. We want to be able to stretch and spread our wings and live to our full potential. King Solomon offers us a way to do that. As we begin our new teaching series, How Big Is Your World, let’s talk about the key to living in as big a world as possible.

Living in a Big World

How big is your world? When we lived in Colorado, we made several trips to the top of Pike’s Peak. It was always a beautiful drive on the way up there, and the view was stunning. There was one picture I took on the way up that is still framed and sitting in my office that really captures the experience for me. Standing at the top of the mountain in the early fall, there is an uneven sea of green stretching out in front of you. Punctuating the green landscape in the background are pops of brilliant yellow where the Aspen trees are at the peak of their color change. There is also a clear, mountain lake in the distance, beautifully reflecting the crystal blue sky. From the picture itself, it looks like it was taken from the top of the world. I can tell you that standing there the sense was even more humbling. I remember feeling tiny in a huge world. 

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Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 22:3

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“A sensible person sees danger and takes cover, but the inexperienced keep going and are punished.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever wanted something really badly, but couldn’t seem to get there for some reason? Maybe you didn’t have the resources to achieve it. Perhaps there was something physical holding you back. It could be that culture simply wasn’t allowing for it. Whatever the reason, you were feeling denied something you really wanted or even felt like should be yours by right. What did you do then? Did you give up and go in another direction, or did you keep right on going, pressing on until you got it no matter what the cost happened to be? The newest Marvel offering from Disney+ is about just such a character. She couldn’t get what she wanted on her own, so she just kept pushing until she got it. And that’s the problem. Let’s talk today about Ironheart.

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Beautiful Feet

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This was a standalone week between series. So, I took the opportunity to share with the congregation something I’ve been studying in my own devotional time. I’ve been working my way through Romans, and I’ve made it as far as chapter 10. Paul writes about salvation there in terms that are crucial for followers of Jesus today to understand. Let’s explore what he has to say.

Beautiful Feet

Have you ever washed a bottle with a small opening? I’ll admit: I hate doing that. You can use a bottle brush, and those are moderately effective, but I find the best approach is to squirt some soap down into them, fill them a bit, and then shake the mixture up really, really well. As long as the bottle isn’t just completely filthy on the inside, that usually does the trick. The only problem with this method is that you have to rinse it really thoroughly or else the next person who uses it gets a mouthful of soap. You can accomplish this in one of two ways. You can carefully run water down the side of the bottle, shake it up with the clean water, dump it out, and do it again. And again. And again. Until after about 100 repeats the bottle is ready to go. The second approach is a whole lot more wasteful, but also more effective. And faster. You just hold the bottle under the tap, turn it on full, and let the clean water run into the bottle until the water coming out of the bottle is clean. 

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Digging in Deeper: Reflections on Freedom

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About a dozen years ago, author and speaker, Os Guinness, wrote book entitled A Free People’s Suicide. Guinness is British by birth, but is a careful student and passionate fan of American life and culture. He is also a committed Christian whose thinking on matters of Christian worldview and apologetics are worth engaging for those interested in learning and growing in their faith and its application to the broader culture. 

In any event, the book is a kind of love letter to the United States. The freedom we have available to us in our nation is unlike anything that exists anywhere else in the world. No other nation has a constitution that is quite like ours. There’s a reason that our Constitution has been in place and operational longer than any other national constitution in the world. Other nations have copied what we have, usually badly, but no one has ever proposed something that gave people a greater experience of ordered liberty than what we have here. 

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