Morningside Devotionals

The most remarkable thing about the truth of the power of God is that, when God wants to get your attention, God does.  http://www.informedfaith.com/cac/singlesermon/10010

Stay Simple- You Never Cease to Exist! _________________________________ We're (all of us) eternal, let's approach it from the simplest thing that we know; matter is neither created nor destroyed; except, for the first singularity - creation. Now that's a physicist approach, a scientific way of looking at what we are- we are, always going to be. Now let's expand that just one step, we will change; Paul in the New Testament reinforces the teaching of Christ in that, we will change, but we will not cease to exist. Keep It Simple - Eternal Is ______________________   Today a friend of mine for over a year of knowing him and praying for him, changed from this reality to the next.  His passing is significant because the testimony of his life, is significant, because he accomplished a great deal for the kingdom, and, he endured endless pain and suffering, and without complaint; the entire time that I was blessed to know him. What does it mean to su...

What if they are wrong, they've lived good lives, eaten good food, had good times and been productive people with good friends; what's the problem with that?  But for you, if you believe them wrong, what are you going to do if they are right?  Consider carefully that you may not know everything that you believe that you do, and that some things may be outside your realm of knowledge.  Is that possible?  It is only the most arrogant of arrogant people who would dare claim they were all knowing, and the truly brilliant and truly intellectual, know that they don't now and never will know, all they need to.  After this short paragraph, and the video, there will be one more question, and that one is from the heart, here is, Plato's challenge... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsFYra7VzNk Someone once contended that on the basis of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and freedom of expression, if you were to yell "FIRE" at the top of your lungs in a full...

Jack Canfield, noted author of "Chicken Soup for the Soul, and a book that is going over me now, "The Success Principles," is a man that I believe, has what the Nez Perce indians described as a "Big Soul."  Near as I can find from studying the Nez Perce culture, they had a word for human, and it meant a person who acted as they ought, lived as they ought, and respected others as they ought.  The Nez Perce I've heard, had not word, as we do, for someone who wasn't "human," it wasn't conceivable to them that someone would be so, instead they had only two descriptions for a person, they were, "human," or, they weren't described at all.  Think about that- what sort of difference might it make in our lives today if we simply didn't even acknowledge when someone was being a total jerk?  How much effort, time, energy and soulful hurt is engendered inside the Body of Christ, by  people who are expressing that someon...

View Site For This Poster CLICK HERE When you really care for somebody, think of them frequently, respect their opinion about things, honestly thrive on the time that you are able to be with them; they matter to you.  So it is when they are not in touch with you, or, you lose contact with them, that you notice the absence of them in your life. Fast forward that to how we react and act toward the church and church life, and even Christianity in the world today? For a moment put aside the grief you may think you can justify against this noble organization, rather, think of it based on the above, from the churches point of view?  What is horribly amusing is the rise of the behavior which used to be held at bay by the church, and how even those who profess to be against the church, find that they are in alignment with what the church would say.  A friend of mine, Chris Voss, just released a blog about sexting, an aberrant form of text video cellular that l...

Mouthful isn't it, and it's the sum of what we are, we aren't what we were, but we aren't what we will be, either, we are in the present, and that's the only place we can be. That's a tough fact of life, and yet as we exist at that moment,  the moments that built up to it, have to be considered, else we'd never grasp any newness to life.  However we cannot live "back there," it doesn't exist, and we can't live for a future that isn't existing either.  Plan for it, anticipate it, if you must, certainly it's interesting to try, but ultimately, what we have is right here, right now, from both of those other perspectives.  It's not just the past, but also what you believe you want to have as a future that contribute to the person we see standing there, right now. That would be an exercise in semantics if it weren't for the fact that we who live out our faith know that we place a very significant amount of...

Click to Web Site of Image "What we have here is failure to communicate, now, that's not the way I wanted it, that's the way he wants it."   Those famous words are part of one of my favorite movies, "Cool Hand Luke," it has a lot to say to somebody who is wondering about life, hope and rules. "Cool Hand Luke," was a values based movie about values when such wasn't cool, it had a heavy moral within it, as does our Proverb for today, 22:6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7gzI9gj3eU We're putting together a deeper section on this, because it is so often mis-interpreted. How you raise your child, may, or, in this day and age, as at no other time in history, affect how they live. We live in a time when the power, raw power of the media, and social media, FaceBook, for example, are not only as influential as a parent, but many times are viewed as more influential. We can continue to deny that in main stream evangelical relig...

The difference between success and no success in the online world is participation.  It's interesting because even the major "blogs" fight this same dilemma,  Dr. James C. Denison who runs the "Center for Informed Faith," which is based out of Dallas Tx has a listed membership in the hundreds of thousands- so certainly his mail list is quite a bit more extensive than ours, and yet, each day about 8 to 10 comments are monitored into the process- participation is absolutely key but participation is invoked, isn't it(?)- meaning that we have to raise issues that are stark enough that you feel compelled to answer. So moving quickly to the point - in Proverbs 22:4 we hear that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYpUDJLKj0 How important is it to know where you are in terms of who you are and what you are about?  Humility in terms of who you are is possible without believing in God, but when you add the necessary understanding of who you are with God in the...

Does this sound like something you may have said to a young person, "don't stand in the street, you'll get..." and you finish that sentence with, "hit." We learn from early days what it means to anticipate or plan against danger, but do we learn to take refuge? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g9MYBtfUDc The idea in this Proverb is tied strongly into the relating of a person to God, the idea is tied into that because the Hebrew so strongly overtones their existence with that in their culture. We today are not so strongly tied into that idea. When this Proverb says to take refuge it is with the cultural understanding that your strength and refuge is found in God. We today in our culture don't see that we see instead our own way of design and that is where our flaw is. If you'd like to get some more impressions of this then click on the tab on this blog that says, "Taking It Deeper." In fact we today believe in plann...

"Well my time is already tied up, so I just don't know where he thinks I can find the time to do that?"  Ever hear somebody saying something like this when asked if they could do something concerning church or volunteer work?  Now in this blog we're going to go into why church work and volunteer work, ought to be the same thing, and my hope is that some Christian's will read this and just get furious and write me all sorts of really mean and nasty stuff- do it, defend your way of life; anybody should, we all should, but when we're wrong, we ought to be big enough to admit it, and correct it (!) (NOTE I DIDN'T SAY MOVE ON- MOVE ON  ISN'T GODLY...we'll "scuss" about that in "taking it deeper")  Christian's need to correct it.  Do you correct it? When  you get mad at somebody, without cause, and they get mad at you, without cause, do you correct it, or let it sit?  Heat on ice...melts the ice and turns it in...

Moved, we say it about the people who "used to live next door," they moved; we say it about a time when we felt strongly about something, we were "moved." Interesting how they mean a transport to somewhere else, you either go there in your mind, or, you go there physically, but you transport, you are moved, we are moved, we become, moved- it's an active word. The Proverbs are designed to move you, you aren't supposed to just read the words and say, "wow that was nice," that's not the deal. The Proverbs are really meant to be read under the starry sky, with your heart open to the heavens so far above what any human might even consider; so enormous, and so full of promise, or, something else, but if you can look up at the starry sky and not be moved, then you can read Proverbs and not have a clue, the sayings must move you. Like the first time I heard this... (a video of Leonard Cohen "Hallelujah" should app...

NIV - Pro 21:23 - He who guards his mouth and his                              tongue keeps himself from calamity. The facts, how do you get to know the facts? You may see them, on the evening news, you may hear them, from the radio or T.V., if you are just listening, but more often than you realize, you get your news, or at least your sense of the news, from someone else. You hear them tell you what they thought they heard.  It is a perpetual and much faster paced rumor mill than at any other time in history.  Now that's not a terrible problem if we are talking about things that people say that are just moderately important, but when the depth of the item takes an another dimension, the rumor spread can cause absolute devastation, and people can lose not only money, but something much more important than money- they can...

Dr. James C. Taylor, co-authored a power work with Dr. Harold Bryson called "Building Sermons to Meet Peoples Needs," as a student of the great Dr. James C. Taylor, it is my pleasure to distinctly remember him and his wonderful, loving, Christian ways. As John would say of Jesus so would I say of Dr. James C. Taylor, I knew him, and was with him and know that today, he is with Jesus. So the greatness of us, who we really are, comes at us daily; but the sum will come back to us, from those whom we touch and reach and influence. Likely it will not come from the work that we do, unless that work touches people and that will last.  At 3 A.M., this morning it hit me how powerfully Nehemiah affected time and history. The mental blows came at me from Nehemiah chapter 11 and from teaching, from the past. Many times people who say that there is no God, they scoff at those of us who believe in God, and it hit me, Nehemiah chapter 11, verse 6- these men, stood, in th...

Hard To Believe Reality-Click Here One of my associates works at an extremely time intensive site, and, they simply do not have time to consume a book of ideas- SO- that's why I came up with that page called "taking it deeper"- sometimes you'll see a new post over there- sometimes not, but if you get a chance and want to check it out, usually there will be some new thing going on- as in Proverbs 21:13:  Here goes the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqZvSbTuj9o There is a thing about who is watching and who is being watched, put another way, the beholder and the beholden? Who are the poor, is that a reference to monetarily poor, because quite easily one can see it might be a reference to poverty of all sort? And really what happens when someone is impoverished is the tendency of others to not listen to them? This is a fantastic Proverb for social media because it so clearly tells us that we can be heard, and that when we hear, we stand ...

The first time you kissed someone, remember it, not a little peck, but a real grabber, that first real kiss?  For some of us, it's hard to get that memory to come back, but if we try, really hard, we can get it back. It is a great memory for just about anyone, and the question about that is, why?  Why is a first kiss significant, is it possibly because, for just about every person,  it is a moment they will remember? Relationships of the wise are based in such common ground of human meaning.  When you chose to make that first kiss, it was with the knowledge that others had kissed before, and they survived it, somewhere in the back of your mind was that certain knowledge of it being so, wasn't it? Now as you are contemplating that, because the answers are myriad as to what that is really all about, and they largely depend upon the viewing point of the person who is making the memory, let's switch gears ever so slightly and move into second gear, no not...