Tag: Following Jesus

Morning Musing: Mark 8:36

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“For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life? (CSB – Read the chapter)

We have been talking about how we can be good at being rich for the last three weeks. This verse, in context, doesn’t have anything to do with that at all. But what it does do is give us a perspective we can take to every part of our lives – including our wealth – that has the power to totally transform our thinking, and by that, our living. If you want to truly be rich – in this present age and any age beyond it – this is a perspective you need to consider embracing.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 Chronicles 29:11-14

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“Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to you. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom, and you are exalted as head over all. Riches and honor come from you, and you are the ruler of everything. Power and might are in your hand, and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all. Now therefore, our God, we give you thanks and praise your glorious name. But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? For everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your own hand.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We all want control. We’re willing to fight pretty hard over it too. So many of the cultural fights and political fights we have in this country (and around the world, for that matter), come down to a matter of control. We want to feel like we are the master of our lives. We want to be the master of as many people around us as we can too. What we see here, though, is a reminder that there is another perspective on control that we would be wise to let inform our thinking a whole lot more than we often do. Let’s talk about what it is and how it can help us be rich.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 12:43-44

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“Summoning his disciples, he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. For they all gave out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had – all she had to live on.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had a perspective shift? Sometimes we get used to seeing things in one way, and never stop to think that there might be another way to look at them. Seeing things another way can bring a whole new world of understanding. Jesus and the disciples were observing a scene that everyone around them was accustomed to seeing in one way. He invited them to see things in a whole new light. Along the way, He gave us a new way to think about some things as well. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: 2 Timothy 4:3-5

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“For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (CSB –Read the chapter)

Here are some reflections this morning in light of the current teaching series we are working through at my church on Sunday mornings. I did not preach yesterday as we were out of town for the weekend. My Minister of Students filled the pulpit for me and did a terrific job tackling the tough subject of the personhood of the Holy Spirit. It really is a freeing thing being able to leave town knowing things are in good hands while I’m gone. Thinking about this series, though, what prompted the whole thing was a series of wrong answers given by people identified as evangelical Christians to very basic questions of Christian theology. How is it that so many Jesus followers could get such basic things wrong about their religious worldview? With some words from Paul to Timothy as our guide, let’s explore this together today.

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Morning Musing: Amos 8:8-10

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“Because of this, won’t the land quake and all who dwell in it mourn? All of it will rise like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt. And in that day – this is the declaration of the Lord God – I will make the sun go down at noon; I will darken the land in the daytime. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make that grief like mourning for an only son and its outcome like a bitter day.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever learned something new about something you thought you understood just fine, and it gave you a totally different perspective on it? That happens every now and then. When it does, you can’t see the old thing in the same way any longer. That happened for me with this passage a few weeks ago. These verses are obviously a prophecy of judgment. It is a judgment coming because of the people’s sin. As I was reading through the devotion on Amos that inspired this journey, though, the author introduced an idea that let me see them in an entirely new light. Let me share that with you.

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