Judging others is wrong I am told. I hear this and I think perhaps I cannot decide what a person has just done is wrong. This passage doesn’t mean I if I see a bad behavior or hear an unkind word or witness a crime, I can’t think it wrong. What I cannot do is make a decision about that …
Salt and Righteousness, Devotional Matthew 5:13-20
Salt and righteousness, seek that which is real instead of the appearance of it. If something loses the essence of what it is and only the appearance remains, it is useless. In Jesus’ day, salt had many impurities, and when the salt washed away, the impurities remained. Then as now, many people like the Pharisees are concerned about the outward …
Pride Wars
If intend to become what God intends for me, I must win the pride wars. Like most of us, God assigned my present circumstance as my mission field. Here and now, I can effectively serve him if I will only trust him and obey. Too often I think my mission is someplace else or some other time. If I listen …
Christian Meditation and Fulfillment vs. Eastern Meditation and Nonexistence
Christian meditation for most is rolled under the subject of prayer. The reason I haven’t finished the first section on prayer for the Prayer and Fasting Guide is twofold. First, I’ve become convicted that I did a very poor job of teaching my teenage daughters how to pray, so the remedy for that takes precedence over finishing the guide. When …
Without God, Worship Much Easier
Without God, maybe I can improve some things at church. About halfway through Sinclair Lewis’ 1927 classic, Elmer Gantry, Elmer boasts to another minister about all his church programs, how fast his church is growing, and how many new members have joined, etc. After this braggadocio, the other minister asks, ‘Elmer why don’t you believe in God?’ Until recently I …
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 …
Listen to God
Few Christians dispute the need to listen to God, but Oswald Chambers wrote in the February 12 writing of My Utmost for His Highest that we frequently do not listen to God. ‘We don’t consciously and deliberately disobey God—we simply don’t listen to Him.’ Rather than to listen to God, Chambers goes further to say we prefer to listen to …
Consecrated Life or Distracted Life: Did Jesus Lie to Us?
Today’s reading in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers combined with my daily readings in II Chronicles, Matthew, Psalms, and Proverbs convicted me deeply. To live the consecrated life instead of the distracted life, I must reflect upon Matthew 6:33-34, daily if necessary. Chambers writes for January 26: ‘Did Jesus Christ lie to us? Are we experiencing the “much …
- Page 2 of 2
- 1
- 2