Tag: Standing firm

Morning Musing: Psalms 118:6-7

2 Comments

“The Lord is for me; I will not be afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me? The Lord is my helper; therefore, I will look in triumph on those who hate me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What is it that motivates you to courage? Is there anything in particular? Some people seem to have a natural bent toward courage. Some, not so much. But all of us have something we are willing to fight to protect. It may be something genuinely worth protecting, or we may have our priorities wildly out of balance, but we all have that thing. One of the great challenges of our life is to find that protective spirit, that willingness to put ourselves on the line for what we believe is right, harness it, and have it ready to call upon in a variety of different situations. What the psalmist offers us right here is something that can inspire courage in us no matter what our situation may be. Let’s talk about what it is and why it matters.

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Luke 1:60-63

Leave a comment

“But his mother responded, ‘No. He will be called John.’ Then they said to her, ‘None of your relatives has that name.’ So they motioned to his father to find out what he wanted him to be called. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all amazed.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I saw a chart the other day from the Pew Research Group showing by comparison the percentage of Americans who claim Christianity as their religious identity versus those who claim no religious identity at all. The former has been on a steady decline, and the latter, a steady rise, since the turn of this millennium. In other words, for the first time in our nation’s history, we are finding ourselves living in a culture that is increasingly more likely than not to push back against us for seeking to live out our faith in public and meaningful ways. The question for us is not whether we can turn back this tide, but how we will respond to it. As we continue into the final week of our Advent journey this morning, we are reminded that this is a place God’s people have found themselves before.

Read the rest…

Strong Where it Counts

Leave a comment

As we wrap up our series, Standing Firm, this week, we find the apostle taking a turn from everything he’s been talking about for the past nine weeks. But then again, he’s not doing that at all. Instead, after spending the rest of the letter telling us how to stand firm in our faith without sacrificing our Gospel witness, Peter closes things out by talking about where we can find the strength we need to do it. I’ll give you a hint: It comes from God, but it isn’t found inside of us. Keep reading to find out what is the source of this strength.

Strong Where It Counts

Some of you are builders and so you understand the ins and outs of building and building materials better than I do. But from my rudimentary understanding, concrete is a pretty good building material. It’s stable. It’s sturdy. It’s strong. It holds up pretty well under a whole variety of weather conditions. It doesn’t degrade much over time. It’s low maintenance. There are all kinds of advantages to it. If you’re building something that requires extra stability and support, though—perhaps because of its size, for instance—concrete isn’t enough by itself. It needs a little bit more to make it up to the task to which you are applying it. Specifically, it needs a steel skeleton. To add this, you build an internal rebar frame inside your concrete mold and pour the mixture over it. With the rebar encased in the slab or structure, its strength is increased many times over concrete by itself. Now, this doesn’t mean that concrete alone isn’t still really strong stuff. It is. But when it has that extra element of support, it can withstand just about anything that might be thrown at it.

Read the rest…

Stand with the End in Mind

Leave a comment

As we near the end of our series, Standing Firm, Peter pours a little bit of apocalyptic fervor over the whole thing. Why is it that we stand firm in our faith even when things get tough? Because the journey we’re on won’t last forever. Let’s explore this together today.

Stand with the End in Mind

I want you to do a little remembering with me this morning. Think about the last time you watched a movie or television show that was set in a post-apocalyptic environment. Now, you know what a post-apocalyptic setting is, right? Most directly it is a story setting that takes place on the other side of some kind of an apocalyptic event. Whether it’s a nuclear war or an alien invasion or a series of natural disasters or a horde of self-aware nanites eliminating all electricity around the world or a virus pandemic that turns people into zombies, something happens that causes massive numbers of people to die, and the survivors are left to figure out how to do life in a whole new world with a whole lot less people and no modern conveniences. In most of these shows people do reorganize into some sort of a society, but have you noticed that this society is almost unfailingly way more violent and brutal than it was before the apocalypse? It’s like the apocalyptic event gives people the freedom to give in to their darkest desires and tendencies. It’s like we’re in the wild, wild west again. These are the kinds of things I think about while watching TV. I’m a ton of fun to watch with.

Read the rest…

More Like Jesus

Leave a comment

As we draw near the end of our series, Standing Firm, this morning we set our sights on what is the end goal of our efforts to remain rooted in Jesus in spite of the culture’s attempts to pull us up. Any time we are on a long journey, it’s helpful to know where we are going. Peter gives us one of those points here. Let’s talk today about how we can become more like Jesus.

More Like Jesus

Have you ever arrived before? Now, you’re probably sitting there starting to think I’m just a bit off…okay, some of you were probably already thinking that, but this just confirms your suspicions. Of course you have arrived before. You arrived at church this morning and here you are. Duh. But that’s not what I mean. I’m thinking a little bigger than that, like when we finally arrived at my folks house a few weeks ago after having been on the road for almost 36 hours. I can’t remember a time I’ve been so thankful to be out of a car.

Read the rest…