Tag: Sin

Morning Musing: Hebrews 13:5

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“Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, ‘I will never leave you or abandon you.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I have never been to Vegas. I’d like to go someday for the spectacle alone, and to see some fun shows, but that’s honestly about it. Gambling just isn’t something that appeals to me. I’ve only ever been in a casino once, and that was to eat. I’ve never bet on a sport either. I do play some fantasy sports (badly) with my family, but that’s about it. I recognize that I’m in reasonably small company in that especially given my age and sex. In spite of my own distaste for the practice, sport betting in particular has become a big business in the United States thanks to a Supreme Court ruling a couple of years ago that removed all the roadblocks to its nationwide legalization. There have been many voices along the way warning that this isn’t a good path for our country to be walking down. Some news broke yesterday offering up a perfect demonstration of why. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: Romans 13:5

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“Therefore, you must submit, not only because of wrath but also because of your conscience.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I have received a speeding ticket on time in my life. It was while I was driving through a small town region in a county that is otherwise pretty sparsely populated. I was actually talking to someone on the phone and had missed a speed limit change. It is a stretch of road where the speed limit changes back and forth between 45 and 55 several times over about 30 miles. I thought I was in the correct zone, but it turns out that I wasn’t. I think the officer posted me as going 9 miles over the limit. He wasn’t even sitting and running radar. He was driving the other way, happened to have his radar on, and flipped around to get me. Ultimately, the judge had me do a round of driving school online and dismissed the case, which was inconvenient, but welcome. While the ticket was pretty irritating given the circumstances (and especially now that as a police chaplain I’ve seen how much leeway some departments give on speed limit infractions), the fact is that I was over the posted limit. I was in the wrong. I deserved the ticket. My conscience still occasionally bothers me about that. Before shifting gears to some other implications of God’s sovereignly assigning authority as He wills, Paul offers one more reason why submitting to the governing authorities over us matters. Let’s take a quick look at what he has to say.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 3:10-12

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“As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Family is hard. It’s hard in a lot of ways. It’s hard because you don’t get to pick your family. It’s hard because your family shapes who you are whether you want them to or not. It’s hard because you are stuck with your family. You can try to deny them, but those hooks are in deep. It’s hard because you love them and love makes you vulnerable. It opens you to wounds of the deepest sort. But family is good. Because of that love that can make it hard, family is where you can be received no matter what. Family gives you a home and a place of stability when the storms of the world blow. With family you know you can find support no matter how deep of a hole you’ve dug for yourself this time. The good of family outweighs the hard, and so you stick with family no matter what. A recent Disney live action remake of an animated classic offers a good reminder of this. Let’s talk about Lilo and Stitch.

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Morning Musing: Romans 11:7-10

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“What then? Israel did not find what it was looking for, but the elect did find it. The rest were hardened, as it is written, ‘God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear, to this day.’ And David says, ‘Let their table become a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a retribution to them. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and their backs be bent continually.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

If you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the journey that is parenthood, you know that one of the biggest ongoing challenges is figuring out how to effectively and adequately discipline children who misbehave. While there are plenty of books out there on the subject, no two children are the same. Some methods work on some children, other methods work on other children. There is no one-size-fits-all approach you can use that will do the trick every single time. That being said, there are some generally transferable approaches worth knowing. One of these is that sometimes the natural consequences are the most effective punishment. The outcome of a particular decision can be its own most effective consequence. This idea plays into what Paul has to say here. Let’s give it a look.

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Digging in Deeper: Genesis 3:8-10

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“Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s always interesting to see which things capture the cultural imagination and which don’t. Sometimes something will happen that seems like it should be shocking only for it not to move the cultural needle at all. Other times, something that feels like it shouldn’t gain any attention because the culture has moved on from it suddenly grabs everyone’s attention for a few days and absolutely will not let go. This second sort of thing happened a few days ago. The chatter about it has finally died down a bit, but for a few days there it was intense. And comical. Let’s chat for a few minutes today about Coldplay concerts and unfaithful spouses.

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