Tag: Christian living

Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 12:15-17

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“Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and defiling many. And make sure that there isn’t any immoral or irreverent person like Esau, who sold his birthright in exchange for a single meal. For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, even though he sought it with tears, because he didn’t find any opportunity for repentance.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

All product user guides follow the same basic format. They begin with warnings, go on to instructions for proper use, and end with a section on troubleshooting. Troubleshooting is essentially one more set of warnings. It is a list of things that might go wrong, and what to do if they happen. Here, as we draw near to the end of the letter, the author of Hebrews offers us a bit of troubleshooting. Let’s take a look at one last warning and how we can avoid some trouble.

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Made for Each Other

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This week we kicked off a brand-new teaching series called, Married for Good. For the next five weeks we are going to be talking about marriage: what it is, how it works, and how to do it well. If you are married, have been married, might be married someday, or even don’t have it on your radar at all, there is going to be something for you in this series. Let’s start today, though, by clarifying just what exactly it is. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Made for Each Other

Weddings are big business…marriages, not so much. This is because everyone loves the idea of getting married. Well, that’s not completely true. The idea of marriage itself has fallen on somewhat hard times of late, but nonetheless, most everyone enjoys a love story that ends with exchanged, “I dos,” at an altar. And, true to form, people will spend enormous amounts of money on a wedding. I did a bit of digging, and the best estimate I could find held that the U.S. wedding industry is worth about $78 billion this year. As much money as we are willing to spend on getting married, however, most folks are not willing to spend quite as much money on staying married. Once we get across that particular line, we tend to treat it like we have arrived. We’ve crossed the finish line and now we can sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of our many labors. Of course, if you are someone who has experienced any part of a marriage journey, you know that this isn’t perhaps quite so true as our culture makes it out to be—as indeed as we would like for it to be. Marriage can be harder than it is often made to seem. 

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 6:24

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“No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are 32 teams in the National Football League. That means on any given week, 32 individuals are at the helm of one of the 32 most elite American football teams in the world. In the most recent census, the population of the United States was about 330 million people. If I have my math right, that means on a given weekend, about one out of every 10.5 million people is playing at the quarterback position in the NFL. While any one person’s odds of being an NFL quarterback are fantastically higher than winning something like the Powerball jackpot (which should tell you something about how silly it is to play the lottery), they’re still not great. That means the only quarterbacking most folks are ever going to do is the armchair variety. It’s super easy to sit in the comfort of your recliner and know what someone should have done in a situation you could have in no ways handled if you were actually in their shoes. It’s not really a good look. So, naturally, this morning, I’m going to do a bit of armchair quarterbacking. What’s going on with Tom Brady?

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Morning Musing: Hebrews 12:14

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“Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness  — without it no one will see the Lord.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been in mid-thought only to say something that triggers another thought, but this new thought is so overwhelming that you have to stop and address it? As we get into the last major teaching section of Hebrews before the author’s lightning round big finish, that’s exactly what seems to happen. This thought of his is something that’s gotten into my own head and heart and I can’t stop thinking about it. Let’s talk this morning about his thought and why it matters so much.

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Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 12:11-13

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“No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Do you know why most people don’t exercise the way they should? Because they don’t want to. I rushed that, didn’t I? You were getting all of your excuses ready to start listing off in defense of your lack of exercise, and I cut your short. But the truth is, at the end of the day, we don’t exercise as much as we should (and I’ll let you define “should” in a way that makes you comfortable) because there are other things we’d rather do more. We have time for all of the things we most want to do. Period. Of course, the reason we don’t want to exercise as much as we want to do other things is because exercising is hard. We don’t like doing hard things. But sometimes, hard things that hurt us in the moment help us in the long run. This is an important thing to keep in mind in the next part of Hebrews 12 here. Let’s take a look at this together.

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