Morningside Devotionals

View on Vocaroo >>   Now, folks don't normally think that our lives as Christians, it could contain miracles within them. We just, we don't objectively, or subjectively consider; that it's not part of our normal way of thinking.  We think and go through life as; this, I have to do today. These are the things I have to do. This is what's going to go on. We almost never begin our day by asking God, what would you have me do today? That's just not our lifestyle, certainly not in America, in 2025. Our lifestyle is, get it, get it done, and if you're a young man, it's get it, get success, get more and really, is there anything wrong with that?  Because, you know, have we got our priorities upside down? I don't know, have we got our priorities inverted? I don't know, I wrote a book called inverted culture and how to happily survive in it. My friend was a best selling author Dr. Stephen Covey, who wrote the 7 habits of an effective leader? ...

View on Vocaroo >>   Stay seated, if you got up and walk round in between these pages, go back and sit down. Because while my first entry about recertifying and serving had to do with conflict in a general; but a funny sense; about what's the worst thing that could happen to you. Now, I'm going to share something with you that is , I consider; it is vastly stranger.  But a great learning lesson, there was an elder in our church who was just a magnificent dude. I mean, he's, he's so cool that it's hard to explain how deep his faith was. I'm gonna call him Red. Now here's the thing, I went on a mission trip. I was brand new I was going to seminary. I basically had only been a Christian for maybe 3 years, we went to a mission trip out in New Mexico. It was a mountain top of mountain top experiences and some day, I'll share with you about the prison visitation and going out, and witnessing on the streets of New Mexico I think Albuquerque out there....

View on Vocaroo >>   Sit down, if you're standing up, sit down, if you're sitting down, stay there, but get ready, because what I'm about to share with you is not the traditional thing that you hear shared. And so I want a kind of preferences by suggesting to you that you understand yes, I've walked with Christ for 50 years. Been called into the ministry for 47 of those, and probably was called before then. Been to seminary, been trained, have a doctorate in theology.   I'm fairly well, a scholastically educated individual academically, trained a better professor; did a little bit of academic training of others. Bucked up against that system, and when you buck up against the educational system, what happens, you get eliminated, and I got eliminated, I had no idea what the battle that I was in. Went to be a pastor at one time. Got eliminated; had no idea the battle I was in.  Here's the thing that I'm going to suggest here, listen to this stor...

View on Vocaroo >>   Miracle, it's such a great word, and it's such a great event. It's such a great happening in your life. Miracle, but how do you recognise a miracle? I'm gonna suggest to you that often times when a miracle is happening, it really doesn't look like a miracle.  It looks like pain or it looks like suffering or it looks like something disastrous. There's something in the scripture, which says that something that happened didn't look like it was intended for good, but that God intended it for good. Now that's real hard for us, because we we proof text Romans, 8:28, when we shouldn't. We shouldn't proof text it.  We should just take it as it is, but actually put it in context, look at everything, Paul had been through and yet, this man who had been nearly beaten to death. Moreover, on occasion, I think I it happened 3 times. Shipwrecked, which we think "ah shipwrecked," understand that means nearly drowning...

View on Vocaroo >>   Recertify by recertifying, is part of the process of certify done over again. Certify over again. Bring a disciple back to Jesus if they've drifted, even if they haven't drifted in the process of bringing them back to Jesus, it should be an encouragement, and it can be an encouragement. And as you develop  The idea of working with recertify, you may find yourself having the ability to work with a person and be encouraging (another) one, and at the same time as recertifying your presence as one who follows Christ, the Greek term is gnorizo ( gno-rid'-zo) and gnorizo has an interesting uh, context to it.  It's used in a lot of scripture, for example, gnorizo, is used many times like in John 17:26. It's used to say it's a declaration in John 17:26 says, "and I have declared onto them by name, and I and will declare it." it can be as a declarative, Ephesians 6:21 says that you may know how Paul has been conducting himself...

View on Vocaroo >>   Recertify has contained within the term an idea. We've been talking about bringing people back to Jesus, working with disciples to keep them engaged with Jesus.  It's a different process, than what we would normally call witnessing. It's a different process than martyring. Martyring is when the authorities or someone in authority isn't in agreement with you about your Christianity, it can take many different forms. For example, some folks are forced to work on Sundays, even though Sunday is a day when they would want to go to church and worship. So that's a form of martyrdom now it's not a very a deep form, but nevertheless, it is true that is a form of martyrios or being a witness.  Because what you intend to do is go worship, and what they're saying is, no, you can't, that's authority coming in over the top of the proper conduct of a person who wants to worship God. So that is martyrdom, that's not martyrdom in th...

View on Vocaroo >>   Ad aspera ad Astra.  It is a rough road that leads to the stars. There are times in following God, when seemingly simple concepts like Genesis, 3;8 God walking in the cool of the day, 'rua yom'. They get past us, we let them go by, because we don't want to grasp is a significance of them simply because we do not know the language.  So when it comes to a process of recertify, perhaps one of the first things that we really ought to dig into is certifying itself. How genuine? In faith, if you are very genuine, in friendship with someone who does not speak your language? But you're genuine, in your friendship, you like being in their presence, they like being in your presence, you share with them, they share with you. It is an exchange. You are friends, you smile together in a way that only you can, but your language separates you, your kindness and your congeniality and your love, unite you and especially in Christianity.  But you do...

View on Vocaroo >>   Recount mountain types. Recount standing at the top of the mountain and seeing other peaks, Dr. Schuler in his book, the Peek to Peak Theory, I think it's called the Peek to Peak Theory?  Peek to Peak Success something like that; Robert Schulher was such a genius; but his peek to peak, that is p e e k, to, p e a k. Well, it's very simple. What he suggests standing at the base of the mountain, you can see the top of the mountain, and that's the peak. That's all you can see. You see that mountain now when you get up to that peak, you can look out and you see many, many other peaks. Now, that journey is how Robert Schuler described the journey of life. That is p e e k, to, p e a k.  In other words, the way of looking at life, it's okay. We arrive at peaks. Now, we had a peek at the peak before we climbed up that mountain to get to the peak. Recounting peaks means that you're not looking at the journeys involved in the peaks, you...

  View on Vocaroo >>   Recount.   Those moments. Recount those spectacular moments, those impactful moments that aren't necessarily pleasant.  Let's stop think about the fact that sometimes we don't want to consider that the best thing that can happen for us isn't positive in nature, but negative, or at least seems negative.  Actually, many times what seems negative turns out to be positive, so we count not necessarily pleasantries. But bear in mind, things that may not seem to be so pleasant. We live in a culture in 2025, especially in America that has something in it called the cancel culture, and this is absolutely deadly to faith and people of faith don't realise how deadly this is. This is; here's the theory; If you don't like something cancel it out eradicate it, take it out. Why(?) because it's not pleasant, it's not good, it's not positive. Well, here's a hint from the Bible. Not everything is.  God is love. Love, isn...

View on Vocaroo >>   Recount other angles, other ways, other side views to things instead of straight on and head up. What does that mean? It's the nuances of life that can sometimes add joy to your experience and happiness, and sometimes those are difficult to see when you're just looking at things headon. Have you ever had an incident where someone just filled you with joy, you were just almost overwhelmed with joy? It was just such a relief, such a spectacular moment when they told you, for example, I have a friend who was cured of cancer, and it was just mind-boggling that that actually happened now, you say, well, that shouldn't be the case, because we believe in faith, when we pray that Jesus is going to take action on our prayers?  Sure, but we've also become very adept at accepting the idea that there are 3 different responses that are possible in prayer. Yes, no and wait. And of course, when it comes to health issues like cancer, we pray for healing, bu...

View on Vocaroo >>   Recount, for clarification, because it’s one thing to remember any event, it’s another thing to itemize or account for the different aspects of that event. So now you see kind of the accounting background to recount. And it isn’t a bad thing at all—it’s a very good thing—because it’s important to understand what it is that you perceive as having taken place in your life, relative to Christ, in a numeric set of values. This time He did this, this time He did this, this time Jesus did this. That’s how the Gospels break out the interaction between Christ and His disciples.  Therefore, does it not make sense that we should break down our existence with Christ in the same manner? Doesn’t it seem wise—perhaps wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove—that we would learn to recount and consider as accurately as possible the times that Almighty God, Elohim, in the point of the Holy Spirit, has brought us to a point of committing something as an action tha...

View on Vocaroo >>   The impossibility of recounting your Christian experience makes an idea about recount very susceptible to criticism. After all, when King David took an unnecessary census in the Old Testament, look at what followed behind that. Recounting is not that kind of taking a census. Rather, recounting is looking realistically at what has taken place, in terms of the many and various things that you can actually recall and recount.  These things have developed you into the kind of disciple maker that you are today. If you are not a disciple maker, recounting will sometimes give you that deep breath that says, “These things has my Lord Christ done for me. How dare I not listen to His command to make disciples?” It can be a centering kind of objective.  The other thing about recounting that we want to get out of the way at the front end is that this is not just remembering. Remembering is sweet—it has the flavors of the event, the ideas in the event, th...

View on Vocaroo >>   Memory is a strange thing. It’s attached to emotions, and as you age and experience life again and again, memory begins to change. It tends to drift toward certain objective events that, in the past, felt significant, and it tends to float toward the ones you want to remember. Memory is odd.   In people, memory becomes even stranger as aging and experience pile up across a lifetime. A thirty-year-old may have a sharp recollection of things from their teenage years. By forty, the mind starts to blur the edges, remembering more of the positive outcomes than the negative. At fifty, memory becomes more selective, pushing away things that weren’t pleasant, though some of them still remain and cannot be erased. By sixty, memory has become almost entirely selective.  A person remembers what they choose to remember, and the rest is pushed back into the recesses of the mind, where it no longer functions in daily thought. Remembering is vitally i...

View on Vocaroo >>   Purpose. Remember. With purpose — remember purpose. Remember that not only does your life, your witness, and your helping people become better learners, being taken back to Jesus has a purpose. But there is a purpose behind that purpose. Which is that there is an overall, overarching purpose that is taking place.  We’ve all heard the mysterious tales — or shall we say truths, as the best description — from Isaiah of the war in heaven. Michael and the angels, and in the Revelation of Christ, this is going on. We see these massive displays of power. And we know that at one time, Lucifer and a third of his angelic host turned against God and were thrown down to earth. We know they are eternal beings. We know they don’t just go away. Where are they?  Well, there are lots of mysteries in the Bible. There are lots of mysteries in worshipping God. There are lots of mysteries in loving, in worshipping, in asking forgiveness. Human beings confessin...

View on Vocaroo >>   A popular phrase in our culture, 2025 is feedback, which is, I guess responding to inquiries or answering questions or stating an opinion about a situation, I bet you're in. So when we're talking about disciples and we're talking about, remember; remember? The Times When feedback was positive for you? Remember the times when feedback was negative for you and remember the times when someone gave you feedback that was just extremely useful and remember the times when people gave you feedback, but it was useless.   What feedback really worked for you, what feedback did something for you that was beneficial? And what feedback did something for you that wasn't worth 2 cents in a spit storm? Feedback in a sense is essential in communication if instruction is all one way, but then it really isn't working? Remember that they were out in the desert and Jesus was talking with the disciples and he had just told Peter, how good they had done and h...

View on Vocaroo >>   So now we come to the matter of remember when it comes to paradigms. Paradigms are a very interesting set of presumptions. They are what we believe to be true, even though we have no cognizance of why we believe it, to be true. We just accept it, to be true, like fiat currency, a dollar bill, we believe that a dollar bill has a dollars value when we buy, for example, half a piece of bubblegum, today in 2025. For a 1$, because a dollar used to buy us about 10 pieces of bubble gum, they were a dime a piece, today; it will buy about half a piece of bubble gum. And inflation is out of control. Meanwhile, what do we have going on in terms of paradigms, we have beliefs, we have beliefs, for example. That certain things are the way that they are, and that's the way they're always going to be. None of that, according to the Bible is real because, according to the Bible, God is in charge. And God is not going to be mocked, and God will have the final say, ...

View on Vocaroo >>   One of the hardest things to keep in mind when you're talking about a process of remembering, especially when it comes to discipling, bringing people to Jesus, bringing them back to Jesus; disciples learners, they may apply to you, they may attach to you because you; and they; get along they're your friends. They're your loved ones, they're your family, they're the people close to you. They're the people that know that you sin. They're the people that have seen your sin, they know your secrets that you don't want other people to know.  But guess what, Jesus said ultimately, they're going to be shouted from the rooftops, so the idea that you need to think that you can keep anything secret from God is a joke but that you would keep anything secret from Jesus, is a worst kind of cynical reprise by the accuser! The devil who would love for you not to confess your sin to Christ. If he can convince you the confessing your s...

View on Vocaroo >>   Remember, not just that God blesses us, but remember the various ways that God blesses us and then remember that with the idea of passing that on.  One of my all time favourite companions was a fabulous poodle by the name of Sophie, she was absolutely amazing, she seemed to always be smiling and tolerating our human ways and she was beautiful, because she would be clear across the field of tall green grass and she would see me come out on the; Tarmac, and she would just come running, bounding across that field. And you remember that this beautiful coal, black, beautiful poodle, and she would just come bowling in the sun with the Christ joy, that's a visual that you remember with the sunlight, the just; the gaity of her presence.  Remember, not just that God blesses us, but remember the flavourings of the blessings. Remember the power of the blessings. Remember the moments of the blessings? Remember the people. God blesses us with people God b...

View on Vocaroo >>   I promise you, in the future, we're going to go to video, but I'm honestly trying to spare you having to see this face. It's bad enough to get old. It's way worse to have all of these wrinkles implemented by God to humble you; anyway, Hey; that and the fact that it used to have hair, and now it just has air. So Making disciples using a process of remembering recounting and recertifying, you could almost substitute the term retelling for recertifying? But certify is used in the New Testament, and I thought Paul using it was just a real kind of a shocker, but a real testimonial to how thoughtful Paul had become? How about the depth of what it means to work with people in bringing them back to Jesus continually? (Galatians 1:11) And we are really focusing in this first chapter on remembering and the fact that remembrances have an odd characteristic to them, and that characteristic is this, if you remember something in a good frame of referen...