Tag: Light

Morning Musing: Mark 4:21-23

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“He also said to them, ‘Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed? isn’t it to be put on a lampstand? For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be brought to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him listen.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus famously describes His followers as the light of the world. In that context, He says that we are not to live such that our light is obscured, but rather to shine for all the world to see. That is, indeed, the purpose of light: to be seen. When we come to these couple of verses in Mark and see Him talking about not putting light under a basket as He did in Matthew, we’re tempted to think He’s talking about the same thing and move on. I’ve thought that before. Taking a closer look, though, reveals something else is in view. Let’s talk this morning about what that is.

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Light to Live By

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In part two of our Christmas series, God Moved into the Neighborhood, we begin looking at how the process of transformation unfolds.  Initially, it’s not very comfortable.  In order to fix the system, we first have to see where and how it’s broken.  Keep reading to see how this works and how to overcome the biggest challenge to it happening.

 

Light to Live By

Have you ever gotten unwanted advice before?  Now, probably there are some folks out there who are far more gracious than I am, but usually when I get unwanted advice my first thought is, “Buzz off, Mr. Busy-Body!”  Who’s with me?  There’s just something a little cynical in most of us that thinks, “You know, they probably mess up at this just as much as I do.  They are in no position to be giving me advice.”  But, there is an exception to this rule.  We as a culture are slavishly reliant on the advice of experts.  If we think someone is an expert, we will listen to just about anything they say.  This phenomenon explains how we got shows like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.  They were both regular “experts” on Oprah who became popular enough to get their own shows.  And perhaps you’re sitting there thinking, “Well I certainly don’t listen to those quacks!  You can’t really trust anything you see on TV anyway.” Read the rest…

A Vibrant Realism

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This Sunday we kicked off a brand new teaching series called, “A Word on Reality.”  For the next few weeks we are going to be working through 1 John and taking a close look at his invitation to be a part of the real world and what it looks like when we do.  In this first part of the series we talked about what needs to happen before any movement in this direction can take place.  Keep reading to find out what this is.

 

A Vibrant Realism

Have you ever tried to teach someone who thought they knew what you were talking about better than you did?  How’d that go?  It was pretty frustrating, wasn’t it?  You probably kept trying to tell them one thing or another, but you could tell they weren’t really listening.  Maybe they were hearing, but not listening.  Then, when you sent them out to put whatever it was into practice they failed.  Miserably.  But then, instead of getting mad at themselves for not being a very good student, they got all upset at you for not teaching them well enough.  The problem was: While they thought they were living within the bounds of reality on whatever the issue was, you knew they weren’t.  But, because of their deeply ingrained false belief, they weren’t willing to listen.  Have you ever been there?   Read the rest…