Tag: Humility

Person standing on a rocky mountain looking at the star-filled night sky with the Milky Way visible

Humility and Knowledge: Discovering Real Truth

Leave a comment

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever known something that turned out not to be true? You were as sure as the world that you had your facts straight until you learned beyond any shadow of doubt that you didn’t. Did you really know it at all? Can you know something that isn’t true? That’s a far more difficult philosophical question to answer than it perhaps seems. All true knowledge is rooted in a foundation of truth. If something doesn’t correspond with reality, we can’t really know it. This means that all knowledge starts with knowing the source of reality. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…
Person in hoodie sitting on rock facing ocean sunset

Digging in Deeper: Colossians 3:12-14

Leave a comment

“Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In my Bible app (I use the YouVersion Bible App which is absolutely worth using if you don’t already have one you like), one of the features is that it allows you to make and save notes about individual verses. Once you have done that, it puts a little blue box around the verse number. This probably won’t surprise you, but I don’t remember every verse I’ve ever written on over the years. I’ve made hundreds of notes in the app and written about many more verses directly on here. Much of my writing, though, comes out of notes I have made on the app. It’s always at least a little interesting when in looking for a verse that captures the heart of something I’m going to write about, I find that it has already served that purpose in the past. That happened this morning as I sat down to write. And appropriately enough, the theme I was writing about a year and a half ago is about the same theme we’re going to talk about today which happens to be conflict resolution. Then it was through the lens of Despicable Me 4. Today it’s through the lens of a great new movie called Green and Gold and yet another episode of Abbott Elementary.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Philippians 2:9-11

Leave a comment

“For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Jesus once told a parable about a man who went to a party and seated himself at the head of the table—the position of highest honor. When the owner of the house who actually threw the party arrived, though, he ushered in some people he considered more important. He looked at the man who had evidently overestimated his importance and politely asked him to go sit at the very end of the table where there was still room among the least important guests. The moral of the story was that if we let humbly God declare our value instead of assuming on it ourselves, He will be able to exalt us. Jesus took His own advice, and God did indeed exalt Him. Let’s talk about it.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Philippians 2:5-8

2 Comments

“Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Jesus was God. Like, the God who created everything. Paul spells out some of that in the opening verses of his letter to the Colossian believers. He was and is worthy of all the honor and glory simply by virtue of being God. When He came, He could have come in glory and luxury. He could have demanded comfort and ease. He didn’t have to experience any inconvenience or discomfort. Yet that’s not what He did. That’s not how He came. Today and tomorrow, let’s examine the most important presentation of the humility of Jesus ever written.

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: Philippians 2:1-4

Leave a comment

“If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one  purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Everybody needs community. We hunger for it. Even if we only find it online, we’ll search for it until we have it. Online, of course, is a pale imitation of the real thing, but if our choice is between that and nothing, we’ll take it. All communities, though, are not created equal. If you want to be a part of a healthy community, that’s going to take some work. It’s going to take a particular type of culture. What kind of culture, you ask? Paul gives us an important clue here in the prelude to one of the more important passages on the subject in all of the Scriptures. Let’s check it out.

Read the rest…