Tag: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Acts 1:8

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“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witness in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the big educational trends of the last generation is the great focus on all things STEM. STEM, of course, is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math. This comes out of a recognition that those particular disciplines are of an increasingly vital importance in the modern world, coupled with a desire to prepare students more thoroughly and effectively to gain meaningful careers in related fields. This STEM focus plays itself out in a variety of ways from schools offering more of the relevant courses in these areas, to the development of entire STEM schools – like my own boys attend – where STEM has become an entire educational philosophy where real world problem solving and interdisciplinary interactions are the foundation on which all learning is built. What this helps students see is that just because an idea is properly understood through a single set of lenses doesn’t meant there are not still more implications to the idea that can help us understand other ideas in new and important ways. What has me thinking about all of this today is a reflection I recently read on this well-known verse from Acts. What it means is clear. But there are some implications of those ideas that I hadn’t considered before. Let’s explore these together.

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Morning Musing: Genesis 11:3-4

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“They said to each other, ‘Come, let’s make oven-fired bricks.’ (They used brick for stone and asphalt for mortar.) And they said, ‘Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What are you building right now? That may sound like a strange question, but bear with me. I love building. I think I’ve passed that love on to my boys too. They all build different things – one builds amazing buildings and models, one builds incredible stories and songs, and the other builds exciting fantasy worlds of great imagination – but they are all builders. In a bigger sense, everyone is building something. The question is not whether, but what and why. One more question is who the building is for. In an interesting little story that falls right near the end of the creation story arc in Genesis, we’re reminded that why we build matters as much – or even more – than what.

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Morning Musing: Ephesians 2:8-10

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“For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift – not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I love stories of redemption. The greater and more profound the turnaround, the better. They are even better when the person who experiences the most dramatic turnaround is the one you least expected, the one who seemed to be the furthest gone. At the end of this incredible passage, Paul helps us see that the turnaround God has planned for us is just this dramatic. We’ve seen how we were totally lost to sin. We’ve seen how God nonetheless planned to save us in Christ anyway so that His glory might be revealed in us. Here, we see just how amazing is the gift we have in Him. Let’s explore it together.

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Morning Musing: Ephesians 2:6-7

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“He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever received a gift that wound up being even better than you imagined it would be? When you get married, you receive all kinds of different gifts. Some people are really good at picking out practical or meaningful gifts. Other folks…mean well. My parents still laugh at a wedding gift they received. It was a serving dish shaped like a Weiner dog and you could pull out its tail to find a little knife for spreading dips. On the other hand, we received a set of basic utility knives from a friend’s mom that we used for fifteen years before they were finally so dull (and had been sharpened so many times they wouldn’t maintain an edge anymore) that we had to replace them. The gift of salvation is a little like our knives (not so much like the Weiner dog serving dish). In our verses yesterday, Paul told us about the salvation we have available in Christ. Here, he invites us more fully into it to see the real riches our God has in store for us.

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Morning Musing: Ephesians 2:4-5

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“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Zombies are hot right now. Well, technically they’re cold since they’re just reanimated dead bodies – and technically, fire is one of the ways you can kill them – but at a cultural level, they’re really popular. Case in point: There’s a decent chance the next Marvel movie, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, is going to feature Marvel zombies at some point. When something makes it into a Marvel movie these days, you know it’s popular. They have become a bit of a cultural barometer. Honestly, I could take or leave zombies (unless they’re chasing me in which case I could definitely leave them). They’ve never captured my interests the way other monster movies have. But there is something about them worth thinking about this morning. Paul points us to what this is here as he moves forward in Ephesians 2.

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