Morningside Devotionals

Science, (which you may know as computer science, or biological science, or DNA genetics, or medicine; there are many branches to science; would you agree with that- science), dominates our lives today.  Without the technology which makes our lives what they are, we are in real trouble.  We have become so dependent upon the technology that we don't resist the scientific influence into other areas of our lives.  For example, relationships, if they (watch this) "don't work," that is a scientific statement, it is treating the holy relationship of people, whether it is love or simply respect for each other; it is treating that relationship as a hypothesis, so that it is broken into two pieces- one works, the other doesn't, and if it "doesn't work?"  What happens is like a petri dish with bad culture, the relationship gets tossed out, that's about as involved as some people are in the most intimate of all relationships, love.  While we hypocritically...

We spoke yesterday of the test about love and the Body of Christ; how you did on that exam, tells you a lot, you see it is between you and God where you stand with the Body of Christ, but it is between you and the world where it will stand for eternity.  Loving without presence, isn't loving.  One of my associates heard someone say, "Love people use things, don't use things and love people," but when asked where that quote came from, in other words the presence, they didn't know- Dr. Covey, whom it's been my thrilling pleasure to have met on two occasions, both unannounced and both, without getting his autograph, but by meeting him, he allowed me to move into his presence.  Dr. Covey brought that, to love people, use things; to everyone's attention when he was explaining to them that they needed to expand the fences that guarded their hearts in their lives.  Dr. Covey uses a famous story about the man who gets on the subway train on Sunday morning in New Y...

Ever take a test where you got an A, but you knew good and well that one of your answers was incomplete? It may seem hard to believe, have you ever been asked a question that you thought you knew the answer to, so you gave it, and it was right, but later, you realized, the answer was not totally right, even though it satisfied the question? This is the harder aspect of what we are walking in today, as Christian's, we're being fooled into believing we are doing what is right, that we are following Christ, but what's happening is we are being led along a path that is not the path Christ wants us, Christian's to take, and the way that we know this is two fold - 1) Does the path you are taking agree with Jesus teaching in the New Testament- and - 2) When you listen very carefully in your prayer time, does the still small voice confirm it? The test you see, of Christianity is conflict, any time that anything conflicts with Christianity, that conflict is a measure of the...

"We can't possibly be that stupid," what sort of measure would you use?  Humankind has now built cities that stretch up into the heavens- the worlds tallest building, (we might see it painted in the blood of those who shed their valiant blood on the sand to pay for the oil that built it)  at present in Dubai, shows so clearly how cities get bigger and taller and yet, oddly, don't they become, less habitable, which you can read as - SMOG- pollution and the offshoot of what we call, progress.  God called it gardening, and in the grand design lacking greed God would have had us plant and manage and work under His guidance.  Today we strive mightily to ignore God 24/7 except when there is a personal or larger disaster, then we cry about God and ask with arrogant stupidity- "how can God allow this to happen."  God doesn't allow "this to happen," God has been trying for centuries to get the free will of man to understand His control; and we resist. ...

Prayer - going to God to be with God in the most private of ways imaginable.  Believing God will hear you, and, knowing God will act on what you ask, and, then; listening to what God says in response to your prayer.  Reading the Bible every day, in a set fashion so that, if you are reading books of the Bible, or, sections, that in a set amount of time, you have read it through, so that at some point you have studied the entire scripture, end to end.  One of the claims of the secular world is that fundamentalist Christian's don't know the scripture.  The unfortunate truth is just that, so, don't allow yourself the luxury of saying "aw, Jesus will forgive me," that's not the point, your here as a remnant Christian to Heaven to let others know about Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to make disciples, not just to; so called "witness," there is an enormous difference, and if you aren't making disciples, you will get to explain to Christ why you aren't.  ...

 As old as man, and back beyond man, apparently, is a divine sense of the comedy which is life.  Only God with such a sense of what must be could construct such a way to do it.  People today don't have to do many things in order to ensure that they acquire heaven- that is, if you go by the beliefs of standard evangelicals, who have seen such a numeric downsizing during the last decade in the U.S. that now they are eclipsed by the rest of the world in worship practices attendance; to those evangelicals the issue is simplifying how to tell a person they don't have to go to hell.  What those evangelicals don't realize is people don't care about it- they don't believe that they are eternal, and they don't believe that there is a hell; except the one that they are living in; the daily grind where true leadership has been turned into a mockery and actual caring is as rare as finding a diamond stone when you get out of your car in the protected parking area, because se...

"And you run and you run, to catch up with the sun, but its sinking, racing around, to come up behind you again. The sun is same, in a relative way, but your older. Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death." Pink Floyd, a band with enormous impact, a band which would record in the Beatles recording studio, Abbey Road, and a band whose album "Dark Side of the Moon," went on to become one of rock and rolls pantheon albums of all time, approaching the sales of the Beatles in popularity. Why do you suppose young folks connected so heavily to lyrics like these? Yes it's true the music was hauntigly different, but the lyrics themselves are known, repeated often, and if you ask a young person if they've heard of Pink Floyd, good chance that they have, and good chance they are familiar with these very words, they are some of Pink Floyd's most popular. Would it surprise you to know that they are, outlandish as it might sound, coming from principl...

 So much of what we know about God, whether we like it or not, is mysterious; God clearly lets us know that His ways aren't our ways; no kidding- and His thoughts aren't our thoughts; when have any of us decided the best way to do things is to bring total destruction upon them?  God is above us, so far beyond our ability to see Him that at times just getting your brain around the fact that God is personal, can be, and should be a bit awe inspiring, and, scary?  But the God that we see in the Old Testament Hebrew seems somehow different from the impression we get of Christ?  If you note the subtle differences; God told Israel to totally wipe out groups of cities which were Baal oriented, Christ wouldn't wipe out men who had perverted the very nature of the Law which He authored?  So as you think on this, today, which historically we take as the day Jesus is entombed; as He would rise again, in three days; as you think on the power that you have within you; God in...

 We were all milling around, not really sure what to do, we'd seen wrecks before, but now we were in it.  At 75 miles per hour we'd been hit and then pushed into the car in front of us on the freeway, and so the wreck had occurred at 70 plus miles per hour.  We were hurt, but amazingly, not killed.  What you do is, you move to the side of the road, so oncoming cars don't hit you, you start...praying, as you shake.  You can see it, can't you.  It got messy fast.  Passover was a high time in worshiping God, it was a time of great love, and a time of great fear - God had shown that the firstborn of an entire kingdom, could be killed in one evening.  So much death, brought so much misery; and yet, from that, Israel was allowed to leave the enslavement that itself was misery beyond description.  So it is with the Passover as Jesus changes everything, forever; the cup which was the announcement of preparedness to leave; He said, was His blood, pour...

 One of the most challenging things that happen to Christian's without them even being aware of it, is they lose their joy, not perhaps, totally; as in depression; but they lose their sense of being joyous over Jesus.  That first lovely fresh powerful feeling that we all remember when we finally gave up the pride, finally got the weight off our hearts, and owned up to one of the most mysterious things of all, we belong to God who made us.  When we asked Jesus to forgive us of our sins, when we knew that the cross was real, and Jesus did it, and we felt that overwhelming power of forgiveness - we felt real and powerful and lasting joy for the first time.  As we smiled to those around us, if they knew, or inwardly, to ourselves as we knew, that real joy, that smile was so awesome wasn't it?  My friends sometimes get that glow going, that's what I call it, the glow- know where I'm going with this one?  Yes indeed, Moses face comin' down off the mountain, what'...

Is there a need in your life to have good news? By the time a person starts their morning with CNN or FOX or any of the morning news shows what they will have seen is despair, hopelessness and ruination on a massive scale and all before they begin their day. Am I saying to ignore the truth of the world, no, but what I am saying is to balance out that truth with a perspective that provides a difference. God does not guaranty a life without pain, but God does guaranty a life where pain is shared with Him, He promises that He won't step out, and He delivers on that promise. One of the finest examples of this that I've read is Corrie Ten Boom's story of the Holocaust expereince where God showed her constantly that He was present, that He loved her and the others and that He would not leave them alone. To such one must say, "that gives me hope," because truthfully when all else around you goes insanely off the scale, wrecks, war, earthquakes, volcanoes, global warmi...

Two of the greatest witnesses to Christ that I've ever known of, Jim Elliot, and Corrie Ten Boom , weren't fading or lanquishing disciples, they were, near as I can tell; full blown, full throated, absolutely outlandish when it came to their devotion to their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Where are the Jim Elliot's and the Corrie Ten Boom's today? My sense is Jim Denison is one, a man who devotedly studies, travels to the front lines of the East, to Israel, to Saudi land, and a man who prints out the truth of what he sees, speaks to large and small audiences about it, and lives his faith. My home church pastor, Tim Everett , who preaches fearlessly from the pulpit about the shameful loss of power that the church is allowing; the pastor of pastors Bro. Garth Collier , a man who literally dives into the midst of things, a man I've seen pray in hospital rooms with his flocks family, a man who fearleslly preaches against sin , a man who lives his faith every single ...

The other day in a conversation my friend informed me that the Koran wasn't a holy book?  That the Bible is the only Holy Book- O.K., that's easy to take in, only guess what, it's not going to help convert those who believe the Koran is a holy book?  Paul said, very clearly, that he attempted to understand everybody around him, if they were poor, Paul got with them in being poor, if they were not well educated, Paul took his high level of knowledge down a peg, Paul said he would become everything to everybody in the hopes of saving some...if you've not read that...read it in the scripture pages for this entry...Paul as serious, do we need to read the Koran?  Most people would not know how, because they would erroneously believe that you can just pick it up and read it chronologically, when that isn't real, furthermore, they wouldn't understand that the Koran when it is understood, supports Christianity and God, supports the principle of peace and supports bringi...

Mat 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."  This has been quoted and unfortuantely used, as a justification for some pretty awful behavior; because the quotes are out of context.  Recently a friend asked me how I'd interpret Matthew 16:28, and, in the ensuing explanation my sense is, my friend, probably won't ask again.  It was pretty lengthly but boiled down to this, context is very hard when it comes to interpreting Matthew, because we who try to hold to a true sense of the history in the Bible and the Bible itself know that Matthew is likely an eyewitness to Jesus.  We also have come to believe that Matthew's gospel was written to make sense to those who were Jewish in their origin; that was likely his first audience.  Matthew is therefore hard to understand from a context sense as you have to feed in a lot of varialbes to get to the truth.  Was Matthew old?  Why would...

These days in America, the land of the yawning Christian, according to so many sources, Christian's in the U.S. are asleep at the wheel in terms of those coming to know Jesus, here are some facts:  "There is a Fifth Great Awakening occurring in our world today. According to David Barrett, author of the World Christian Encyclopedia, 82,000 people become Christians every day. More are coming to Christ than at any time in Christian history. Today, 32,000 will become followers of Jesus in Africa, 25,000 in Asia, and 17,000 in Latin America.1 More Muslims are becoming Christians than at any time in the history of Islam. Thousands of Muslims are seeing visions and dreams of Jesus and coming to faith in him as their Lord.2 Saudi Arabian Muslim leader Sheikh Ahmad al-Qatanni recently reported on al-Jazeera television that every day, "16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity." He claimed that Islam was losing six million a year to Christian faith.3 While he could be infl...

And God is who God is - and you can try to fake it, you can try to act like it ain't so, you can try to ignore Him, you can try to believe that you are following Him as closely as you need to, you can play every silly, meaningless game that we people come up with to try and keep God from bursting into our hearts with His love, but you will fail, God is love. Selfishness and cold hearted legalism are just eating our churches up, worse than this false Christianity is the Godless conduct of putting self on the throne! People actually have come so far down that highway that they no longer acknowledge that they have what they have because it is granted unto them a blessing by God! Consider the ability to forgive- what is more righteous than to not wish ill toward a brother or sister in Christ, in your heart, what is more righteous than that- we are instructed to become experts at that, we are given actual teaching in the New Testament about how important it is to bring right a brothe...

 "Peaceful Warrior" is autobiographical which means we can argue with it, if we want to, but the dude who put it together says it's real; so, it might confound our small minds, but maybe, they needed confounding?  One of the main tenants in this great story is the effect of living in the now; Jesus said that the past is a lesson and the future doesn't exist, only today, today is what we need to focus on.  As a result, we begin to see things in a new way, the today way, it sounds corny, but in reality, it is powerful.  When you allow useless worries over things you cannot change, the past, and useless worries over things that may not get here, the future, to affect your present state of joy; you've allowed it - I hear too many people blame being negative, self centered, whining babies on Satan; he didn't steal their joy, they surrendered it to false demons of past and future before he had to!  As a result they are miserable, they are full of worry and doubt and...

 There are no two people who are alike, according to what we've been told, the suggestion is, however, just as with snowflakes, that such may not be true.  It was discovered last year that snowflakes in fact may have a large scale repeating pattern; prior to the ability to measure immense numbers and super large scale databases, it appeared that each flake was individual and unique.  The same pattern principle may apply to the small scale DNA of the human, we simply haven't had time to finish the decoding of the human genome that has been tracked.  We know what the genetic code is, we know how it is assembled to equal certain matters, what we still have yet to generalize is the coding principle involved.  That, however, isn't far off and at that time we will have the ability to generate many types of medicines that currently are ideals- some of which, however, have already occurred; so that, in the not too distant future, medicine will be available that will li...

When I was growing up this was a saying, "for the love of Pete would you look at that," now, I never knew who Pete was, but recently have discovered someone who says this is a euphemism for Peter, or, for saying "for the love of God, " these sayings that we have, nevertheless, have love at their origin. Love is action, not, inaction. Love is caring, not, apathy. Love is doing, not thinking about doing. Love is giving, not thinking about giving. Love is sacrificing, not thinking about sacrificing. If you look carefully at the confrontations Jesus had with the Pharisees you will see love there, Jesus was saddened and righteously indignant that these great religious leaders who knew so much of the history of His Father, knew so little of the soul of Love? Oh my, let's hope He wouldn't say that of us today? So what can we do to make sure that we are keeping our hearts aligned with His? Jhn 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him tha...

 One of my students many years ago saw the movie "Full Metal Jacket," and he just couldn't get past the saying about "this is my rifle, there are many like it, but this rifle is my rifle," it hung in his mind about how they personalized the weaponry.  Personal is powerful, impersonal is not, this is why when someone matters to me, they know it, it stays personal and no matter what, I will not allow relationships to become impersonal, because if a person matters they matter, and if they don't, it has to be for the only reason possible, we simply have no knowledge of one another.  This is what is difficult about walking with Jesus, sometimes, I'd like a little distance, but it's not gonna happen; those times are when I'm hip deep in sinning, Jesus is the last thing on my mind, and the most embarrassing person to have to deal with.  This is what is difficult about walking with Jesus is I can't get Him to act toward me as I act toward folks when ...