Morningside Devotionals

A  View on Vocaroo >>   I'm selfish, most of you who know me know that I grew up without brothers or sisters, but in a good family. In a non-nuclear family , I never knew my father, who left when I was 2 years old and evidently never looked back that I'm aware of.  But I had a great family, had a mom;  gramma, a couple of uncles;  who helped raise me, but I was raised as an individual amongst adults. And so as a result, my outlook was very  "me"-istic and in today's culture, a meistic outlook, fits in real well, because today's culture is all meme meme.  And I don't mean that, as in me-me's ;meme has been social media, I mean, that, as in a very heightened sense of me, almost narcissistic to the point of being a phobia in our culture. I actually know, ladies 25 to 35 years old, whose entire concept of who they want anything to do with, is, who makes them feel the best, who makes them happiest consequently their very difficult to deal with ...

View on Vocaroo >>   The idea of tact is often more easily expressed than being tactful itself. Tact is explained in many different ways, but it actually is an ability to allow people to do the things that they most naturally would like to do anyway, allow people to make the choices that they need to make in order to satisfactorily, live out their lives with as much dignity as possible; with as much respect as possible with as much favorability as possible; amongst each other.  And that's a difficult thing because all of us are so different and all of us are so devoted to our differences. Even though we'd like to think that we're not. That in the instance of an individual who is so tightly wound to their own perception of who they must be; with regard to other people around them. Tact is a trait that is really appreciated when it's applied, but very difficult sometimes to master.  When we were in the military, it was said the tact is the ability to get soldie...

View on Vocaroo >>   Loyalty is a trait that we believe that we understand because loyalty is something that we believe that we can easily see. And that we can render into a believable category in our minds, as we think about what it means to have the characteristic of loyalty.  But loyalty may not be exactly what we think most of the time. For example, when a person is with someone everyday day in Day Out, 24/7 is that loyalty or is that presence? Does presence merit loyalty?  Here's a simple contention to consider. Loyalty is the characteristic of an individual being by your side; when being by your side is going to cost them. Now loyalty is also the characteristic of remaining in your way of teaching or in the master's way of teaching when that's going to have a cost ascribed to it. Otherwise, it isn't necessarily loyalty so much as it might be merely a relationship. A loving relationship, a friendship, a loving friendship, a kind relationship that exist...

View on Vocaroo >>   Any fool can know. The point is to understand. -Albert Einstein.   Knowledge is power. -Sir France's Bacon.   An investment in knowledge, always pays the best interest. -Benjamin Franklin   If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it. -Unknown?   So we have a lot of sayings about knowledge. We have a lot of knowledge about knowledge, and you probably believe that you understand what knowledge is?  So one of the things that we want to try to understand is that knowledge is not just something that you possess inherently, and naturally, but that knowledge is one of those attributes that can be enhanced through a process of education, knowledge is not just retention. Knowledge is not just the ability to spew back out what you have taken in; there is some mysterious aspect to knowledge that has to do with its use; its application?  And then there is a thing about knowledge that is visionary....

View on Vocaroo >>   Justice, well, we could try to define justice. We could think about justice as the absence of injustice. That's always an interesting way to think about things. The opposite of dark is the presence of light? That in a totally dark room lighting, just a small candle, takes all of the total darkness out. However darkness has a power to it. In a totally dark room, you and I both know that, that little candle's light; yes, it shines bright down in that corner. But it does not light up and illuminate the whole room.  Justice is not a concept. Although it is an idea and a concept; justice is a result. Justice is the action that takes place and is a result of what is happening in the life. So justice is an outcome, and justice is also the input to achieve that outcome. Justice is not as easily understood, nor defined as we might believe. We have certain paradigms in our minds that we believe define justice, and therefore, we believe and think th...

View on Vocaroo >>   First Kings, chapter 3 verses 16 through 28. Tells the story that one day, 2 women came to king Solomon, and one of them said your majesty, this woman, and I live in the same house not long ago. My baby was born at home in 3 days later, her baby was born. Nobody else was there with us one night while we were all asleep. She rolled over on her baby and he died. Then while I was still asleep, she got up and took my son out of my bed, she put him in her bed, then she put her dead baby next to me in the morning, when I got up to feed my son, I saw that he was dead. But when I looked at him in the light, I knew he wasn't my son, the other woman shouted, he was your son, my baby is alive. The dead baby is yours, the first woman yelled mine is alive. They argued back-and-forth in front of Solomon, and finally, he said, both of you say this live baby is yours someone bring me a sword. A sword was brought in Solomon, ordered. Cut the baby in half that way...

View on Vocaroo >>   Integrity is one of those words that everyone thinks that they understand what it means and they probably basically do. And that they would define it, as don't ever lie. However, there's a lot more to integrity than that.   Because in the considerations of what it means to have a leader who has bearing, courage decisiveness, dependability, endurance, enthusiasm, who has this quality of initiative. Then, there is integrity, but there's also a sense of justice, a sense of judgment, knowledge, loyalty, tact and unselfishness.   But integrity is the prime factor when you're talking about, who, what, when where, how or why of any event that takes place in a person's life, and any information concerning that event, no matter what the event is, the event can be as simple as a family dinner well, who's going to be involved? In it, where's it going to be? When's it going to take place? What are we having to eat? And why are we hav...

View on Vocaroo >>   Initiative is a strange characteristic. Because a person who takes initiative is a different kind of individual. And we all know that because we see people who are going to the front, to make sure that things take place, and we wonder, where does that come from(?); initiative can be a learned characteristic. Because if you stand back and you look at a picture image and you think, you know, that skyline would be perfect. If it only had one more tall building in there, initiative is drawing in that building, and then painting it in; so that the painting will be complete, or another way to look at it is an individual with initiative; sees that something needs to take place.   For example, if there's a lack of general education about how to repair things initiative goes toward trying to help others learn how to do that. I have a friend who's a plumber And what he discovered is that other plumbers weren't being created weren't being taught, were...

View on Vocaroo >>   As we go through these characteristics of a leader, these are all pronounced characteristics. They are things that leaders have learned to emulate, and to teach others how to emulate, and for they themselves as leaders to emulate, but most normally, these are characteristics that individuals possess, because as they've grown up, they've been educated by leaders as leaders.  But that is kind of changing in our culture. It's hard to explain the difference between a family that is patriarchal with a father who is present. Who is himself a leader and is teaching his children leadership and a non patriarchal family that is not centered in that way. So those lessons aren't passed on in that way. I'm thinking about such men as, for example, Gen. Patton and the relationship that he had with his father see those kinds of dominant leading men.  Well, I think that they are changing in our culture, and I believe that in our culture, we need to...

View on Vocaroo >>   Endurance is easy to say very difficult to prove out. What does endurance mean? If you really want to test endurance, just to see how long your endurance actually is, get somebody with a gallon jug of water in a car. And just take off, walking and let them follow you and just walk until you can't walk anymore. You may make 3 miles, you may make 5 miles, but at some point you're gonna say, this walking is getting old, get in the car, have a drink and you'll know your level of walking endurance, you'll know how long you can keep on walking without it being to the point where you don't feel like walking any more.   We view endurance with several different aspects of perspectives and vantage points. Endurance is also easily associated with long distance running. People are familiar with the idea of building up endurance, but in Christianity, building up endurance, takes on an entirely different meaning we think of and usually hear sermo...

View on Vocaroo >>   Dependability means more than just being able to be trusted to be somewhere at a specific time and event. Dependability means that you have shoulders that can be leaned on. You have strength of character that can be trusted, that you can be depended upon, to act and react to certain circumstances in certain ways.   Dependability in a leader means that when you suggest to folks, or even order folks that something must be done; that you've thought it through that you're not going to ask them to do something that you yourself would not be willing to do. So that the reason that you're delegating is not because you don't want to do it, but because you have the idea. And it needs to spread, and it needs to be done by other people. In order that the overall progress of the organisation can be furthered, so dependability in a leader is an essential trait, and it is fundamentally a trait that can be learned.   All of my life. because I gre...

View on Vocaroo >>   Years ago, there was a movement in business, especially in business schools, universities and colleges had to do with just make a decision! Because after the decision. Obviously there's going to have to be adjustments and there are always adjustments in every project that's ever proposed. So the big statement was just make a decision.   Well, here's the thing about decisiveness. It's not so much that you're just making a decision, it's actually taking into consideration the factors that need to go into the result that you're considering. So decisiveness is a learned behaviour and it's very much a behaviour that can be improved upon.   I love to play Chess. And more than loving to play it, I love to win and I hate to lose, but I also just love to play the game. Well here's the thing after learning a style of opening in Chess. You can win an awful lot of games because it's a very hard opening to combat against. So t...

View on Vocaroo >>   Courage is a word that gets thrown around a lot. And people have a lot of interesting pithy, sayings about courage, courage is not the ability to just stand there and fight without any sense of fear, courage, is the ability to fight in the face of fear.  I personally like Winston Churchill's quote that says "Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen." I really like Winston Churchill when it comes to statements about courage, because if it weren't for Churchill, I'm not sure that we'd be speaking American in America, I think we might be speaking German. But I don't know for sure, history has been kind to us in America. History has been very kind. We are a fortunate nation. We are a nation, however, founded. I believe personally on courage.  If you had to take one of the traits of leadership from bearing courage, decisiveness, dependability, endurance, enthusiasm, init...

View on Vocaroo >>   47 years ago. November 11th 1978, I received the Gen. Douglas McCarthur award for distinguished leadership from the Bad Toelz NCO Academy, Seventh Army NCO Academy.   It was a high point a real high point, because what they instructed us in was bearing, courage, decisiveness, dependability, endurance, enthusiasm initiative, integrity, judgement, justice, loyalty, knowledge, tact and unselfishness. The characteristics of a leader.  And the shocking thing to me was that the staff sergeant in charge of teaching leadership said that in the opinion of most military greats such as Eisenhower, Patton Marshal, etc., the greatest military leader of all time, was Jesus Christ Because with 12 men, he changed the world forever.   Now That was a little bit shocking to me, because you would expect, great military leaders, Alexander the Great; Hannibal things like that. Marcus Aurelius out of Rome, but no in their opinion, in these real mili...

View on Vocaroo >>   In 2012, Ron Carpenter Jr., wrote an amazing book called "The Necessity of an Enemy.," and in it what he proposes; is that enemies make us stronger? Because we have something to fight against. And as we fight against it, we gain strength; that if there is no fight against an enemy, then your strength wanes. It's a good idea. It's a great book, and it makes a great deal of sense.   Because the adversary to God is; at least the adversary to God on earth is; Lucifer. Satan cast down-to-earth and this evil satan is the enemy of Christianity. The enemy of God; Certainly, the enemy of Christ and one of the things that in Christianity today is taking place is the merging of cancel culture thinking into Christianity as a standard. So what's that mean well, in Christianity(?) today there's the big moral push.   Don't watch movies that are going to have a bad influence on your morals and ethics. My suggestion would be that what that ...

View on Vocaroo >>   Are there questions that don't get asked? Remember that there are always questions that don't get asked. And the reason that these questions don't get asked is that these questions make us uncomfortable.  Take, for example, a section of the New Testament, the gospel of John, that goes from 7:53 to chapter 8:11. And here's what it says "this paragraph can no longer be considered a part of the gospel of John, but it is in all probability a true story of Jesus."   Now, this comes from A.T. Robertson, in his harmony of the Gospels, which is copyrighted in 1922. And then this reprinted version is copyrighted 1950. A.T. Robertson's harmony of the Gospels, is considered as a seminal work and a great harmony of the Gospels, but it's his inserted comments that are great.  And this is at the bottom of page 115, he says that "in all probability, it is a true story of Jesus very likely, drawn by early students from the collection ...

View on Vocaroo >> It's very quiet right now. It's early. Remember that there was a time in your life when it was quiet. Remember that time? Remember that quiet.   Quiet is an interesting place because we live in a noisy world. One of my favorite movie scenes is in a movie that many Christians just can't bring themselves to watch because it has a lot of R rated content in it. But it's called midnight in the garden of good and evil. It was a Clint Eastwood movie and John Cusack is in it and he plays a New York reporter who brings a recording of the noise of New York City with him. And he plays it so he can sleep.   Imagine quiet. My bet is that you've never heard it much. One time we went camping in north Arkansas. With the youth group from the church, and it was up by a place called Albert Pike, I think it was; first of all, there was no noise in that forest. So when I recount that moment of remembering that quiet, I recount that as one of those times w...

View on Vocaroo >>   Remembering is so close to recounting, but it's different in the subtle way that remembering manages to bring in flavors that the more accounting resembling recount does not. And it's for a purpose.  Remembering is to fortify to lift up to elevate, to bring into more dense relationship with Christ, your faith. Remember that in the past, you're a sinner, so you've committed sins, and in the past, you've asked him to forgive you of your sins, and what has He done? And that remembering allows you to understand that no, we do not want to sin, because our way of living our way of understanding our way of relating to a holy God; is not the same at all?  But by the same tick, by the same standard, we are sinners, we will fall, and when we do, what happens to us an extension of Grace by Christ. So Paul asked the question, well, does this mean that we can just go on sinning? And of course, the response is no. Our hearts are not that way slan...

View on Vocaroo >>   What is an aspect? An aspect is a slant. A side of a diamond . There are many different facets to a diamond. There are many different ways that light reflects through a diamond, adding aspects to the fact of the diamond in the beauty of the colors that are transmitted from the light. Remember that at 1 time you did not know Jesus. At all.  Somehow, you were brought to a point where you began to recognize that he's for real Then, came the moment when you realized that what you wanted to do was follow him. And the process of following him meant that you were going to have to deal with those ways that you did not adjust your life to live according to his standards of righteousness. So you would confess your sins. Remember that confessing your sins is absolutely necessary before you can repent.  Because you have to recognize that you have a difficulty; a problem; before any cure to the problem can be attempted. So confession and repentance a...