Why Blog?

Why blog? Why blog? The main reason and core reason to blog is the same as keeping a journal. It is a way of sharpening my understanding and expression of life experience. By keeping it in a public way, it forces me to try and write coherently because there is the possibility that someone might stumble upon it and read …

View of Others? Changing It Requires Raising the Dead

In thinking about how to change my view of others or forgiving, I find it appropriate and divinely serendipitous that today’s writing in Chamber’s My Utmost for His Highest coincides with my reading of Mark 9 and occurs the week before Easter. During Easter I think more about miracles. This relates greatly to what I think and believe about people. …

We Might Be Pharisees If…

The Jews knew the Pharisees as the strictly religious people of Jesus’s day. Consequently, readers of the Bible interchange Pharisee with self-righteous. To think as a Pharisee generally requires a social group to reinforce self-righteous beliefs. As a recovering legalist, I know how easy it is to slide into self-righteous attitudes. Without an on-going relationship with God, I slide into a self-righteous …

A Clue to What You Need to Do

I need a clue. What is my mission for the day? What clue do I need to direct me to my cross today? What’s the first thing I thought of this morning? What’s the thing I dread? The thought eating at me? Did someone hurt me yesterday, or last week? Am I still thinking about it? Take it to God …

Celebration of Obscurity

A celebration of obscurity counters the message of my culture. My culture labels me irrelevant and obscure, and one ignored by greatness. In contrast, the love of God, my wife, my children bless me in abundance. Any disturbance caused by Ecclesiastes in that ‘even those who are yet to come, will not be remembered by those who follow,’ will pass on …

The Lure of Legalism

The lure of legalism comes from the desire to be right which can be greater than the desire to believe. Being right means personal and public control. Belief means surrender and submission to something greater. Jesus warned the disciples about the the lure of legalism from the Pharisees and Sadducees because of this control aspect. Kent commenting on my last post gave great …

Westboro Baptist Church – A Shining Light

I confess that sometimes it takes a while for me to fully understand situations, and I’m a little slow. The activities of Westboro Baptist Church used to worry me. Since non-Christians and neutral observers viewed them through the media, I worried that they would think Westboro Baptist Church represented Jesus and and his message. I truly failed to recognize the …