Morningside Devotionals

Being a part of a larger experience is often a paradox, you are a part of it, and yet, you aren't exactly, because it is bigger than you are.  The paradox is that you are in fact, part of it, even though, you may not realize it, or feel personally that such is the case.  This is a paradox when it comes to responsibility, and it is a paradox when it comes to outcomes, you see, the odd part of this happens when small things take on big significance.  Take for example Ruth- a lady who was working, which was what she was supposed to be doing, after having displayed unbelievable faith in following her mother-in-law to a situation which had no guarantee of survival.  There she was, doing her small part, working in the fields, and yet we read in the story where as a result of what she did and her faithful application of the laws of God, she became a grandparent (if you will) to one of the most powerful Kings of all time, King David, and eventually her lineage would bring ab...

Pro 11:26 He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him: but blessing [shall be] upon the head of him that selleth [it].  What we just experienced in America some months back when the banks were given large amounts of money to "bail them out," and then, turned that money, in many instances, inward rather than outward into the economy may be a proving out of this?  Proverbs often asserts a larger issue of wisdom behind the saying, here we see a principle involving the conduct of one who has possessions, and not just possessions, but in this instance, corn, a grain which when it falls to the ground - brings forth more as it dies, as we are told by Jesus.  It isn't hard to see where a person who hoarded the corn that could multiply if used, wouldn't be appreciated by many people, on the other hand, a person who made sure it was out in  the community, so it could multiply, would be appreciated.  Which type of person are you?

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...

There has been in the last few years a drastic change in Christian thinking and feelings, a drastic distancing from the warmth of the Body of Christ, flesh intermixed with the Holy Spirit of God, toward, groupthink and standardized behaviors.  More psychology than spirituality; and yet, in it's danger, is also the very thing that must be the solution to much of what we have allowed to happen.  It is not about being accountable, that's a term that a jailer uses when they are making sure the inmates are in the right cell!  Rather it is about surrendered life, the giving over of ones will to the only King one needs to willingly serve.  Now don't think this is semantics, because at the very heart of God is a want for those who should love Him to understand both His mercy and grace, neither of which are present when someone demands to know why you haven't done what you were supposed to do- that's not life in Christ, that's bondage in Egypt!  For all those who believe...

How do you see God?  Your view of God really is the determining factor in whether you have anything to say about God or not.  Do you live as if though God is real?  Do you love and forgive, donate, sacrifice in behalf of those who have less than you, as if though God exists?  Do you uplift, pray for, support, encourage and treat your fellow God believers, as if though, God exists?  If you don't, do you believe God exists? Do you believe- really believe, God is real?  If God is real, and you don't live as if though you believe God is real, then do you really believe God is real?  Simple isn't it- but this revolutionary idea is still kicking the tales of those who want to lie about what they really feel - who want to hide behind false statements, false actions, guarded notions of inner hatreds which they refuse to turn loose of, and the worst of all possible things that can happen to a person who believes they believe in God- live as if though God i...

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...

The day is coming when you and I won't look nor act like we do now- we will essentially be what we are, but we shall be changed into something gloriously different and free- right now we're bound by the gravity that forces our bodies into the earth- but then, gloriously, we shall be free, we shall fly- we shall mount up with wings like eagles- and FLY!  One of my associates lives a sort of lonely existence, work is a part of their world, they have a spouse, who largely ignores their life, it's sad in some profound sense that they are bound by their sense of loyalty and fidelity to Christ into a relationship which isn't fulfilling for them; they are in some sense; held in place- a sad place.  Oh don't misunderstand me, they have some joy in their life, on occasion they have famliy who come around and cheer them up, and they have friends who try to help them see that it's not just the sad and incomplete relationship they are in which is their life, but otherwise, ...

"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. ...

You can't believe for somebody else, right? Well partially right, because if they don't believe, still you must, for otherwise, how will they see what belief is about? A very close associate of mine is a control freak; and walks fairly close to fear; he doesn't realize how damaging both of those characteristics are as he determines how we are to conduct the business of God. Now he believes in God, and yet, he also believes that he has to direct how things are going to go; and, no matter how you slice it up, those two won't fit into the same pie. So my friend is often feeling as if though he doesn't do enough; doesn't accomplish enough, and isn't satisfying enough to God; and he shows it and says it and lives it in his every moment with others. Only problem is, Jesus said, "don't be filled with fear, be filled with joy, you believe in me, and I've overcome the world." (several statements put together there...) My associate the control ...

Hatred is an interesting emotional experience because it leaves you feeling like you put something into the fracas, but what came out didn't add up, it's an odd feeling of having done less than you needed.  My first encounter with hatred was early in life, we were poor, my father either didn't care about us, or, just simply couldn't handle being a "dad," so he left us when I was two, or so when my folks were alive, they would tell me.  What happened then is, we became poor, mom worked at jobs that didn't pay much, the family tried to make ends meet, but work hard as they could, they never quite seemed to catch a break above even, and mom and I always were the poor end of the family gathered, and they hated us for being poor.  My friends in school didn't hate me for being poor, but their parents did- odd thing about parents of well off kids, they don't trust poor kids, you know "well why aren't they better off if they're honest hard wor...

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...

One of the weirdest things about people is this thing that happens when they believe they have it "together," and don't need to learn or grow anymore. It is particularly weird when it concerns the area of God and relating to God, but what my experience has taught me is that a person who is arrogant in life about other things, is usually going to carry that same ignorant haughtiness into the realm of God. Such arrogance is distasteful, especially when you make an effort to share with the arrogant where they are shorting themselves of some blessings by being arrogant. If you've ever had the experience of studying some materials that are beyond belief in their wonder and majesty and you share with someone that actually could use the material about it, and they say, "well ya know - I just really don't have time for that, besides, I don't need to know stuff like that." It catches you up short a bit, because the correct answer ought always to be, ...

 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...

 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'...

It is actually pretty funny when you think about it; what might happen, and what might not happen, and how many different people believe they have it figured out, and how many people figure they can't figure it out-and yet, there it is, in black and white; so to say.  Think about it, the playbook isn't hidden, it is "revealed," that's literally what the title says; only, guess what; in all the "revealing," have you got it straight- really?  It's also odd, in fact downright, strange; that in all the "revealing," seldom do you hear someone putting forth the idea that it's not gonna look like, note that, LOOK LIKE, folks are thinking it will.  Outlandish isn't it?  Which means, it's probably not going to happen like you think...now why would you suppose that might be?  My first input to you on this dear reader concerns the matter of what you will allow your head to get around, and what, out of just sheer being who you are, you won...

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...

 A sense of time, a sense of place, and a sense of who you are; put those together and you have the dynamic for success that every Guru of success today is in love with making you want to buy into.  The toughest part of that is, they are feeding you a cultural pie designed to be digested without tasting the food itself; if you buy into their design on your life, you will run through it, achieve and achieve and achieve again; only to reach a point where you suddenly and quite climatically realize, you've not understood a thing of what you really were about, and what your life was really all about.  So when you speak of destiny, perhaps, have a little extra nuance of grace and; speak softly. Isa 38:15 What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done [it]: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul. "drd's" Blog Ooh Visit Our Twitter Group 1000 plus strong and growing! Visit our Facebook effort, it will make ya sm...