Tag: Growing in Christ

Digging in Deeper: Psalm 81:8

Leave a comment

“Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!  O Israel, if you would but listen to me!”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Do you listen to God?  I don’t know about you, but I can pretty easily find myself in a rut of talking to God a lot, but not stopping to listen very often.  I can get into a pattern of reading God’s word every day because I’m supposed to (especially as a pastor!), but not paying very close attention to what He might want to say to me through it.  Let’s just call it what it is: Listening to God is tough. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 2 Peter 1:5-8

Leave a comment

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.  For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Do you want to be effective?  We all do, don’t we?  We want to be able to have an impact on the people and environment around us.  Not only that, but we want to do so in a way that will last and have meaning.  The question, then, becomes: How do we do this?  How can we have an effective impact on our situations? Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Proverbs 21:26

Leave a comment

“All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.”  (ESV)

Being righteous doesn’t mean being perfect.  That is certainly the goal, but the two aren’t the same thing.  The righteous person still has desires for all kinds of different things, many of them things which are not good for them.  As Solomon writes here, he craves and craves all day long.  What the righteous person does do is deny those cravings for the sake of others.  He learns to say no to what he wants in order that he might be able to give to those around him.  She is in control of her desires in order leverage her resources for the benefit of people who do not have similar access to them. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Psalm 101:2-8

Leave a comment

I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;

I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.

A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.

Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy.
Whoever has a haughty look and an
arrogant heart
I will not endure.

I will look with favor on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
he who walks in the way that is blameless
shall minister to me.

No one who practices deceit
shall dwell in my house;
no one who utters lies
shall continue before my eyes.

Morning by morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
cutting off all evildoers
from the city of the Lord.

(ESV – Read the chapter)

These are powerful words.  David was writing this from his position as king of Israel.  He was laying out his commitment to God of how he was going to manage his kingdom in such a way that would keep it on the path of righteousness.  He was talking about how he was going to set guardrails to keep it from teetering into evil.  Drawing from v. 2, he was committing himself to walking in the way that is blameless and then going on to describe how he was going to do that.   Read the rest…