Morningside Devotionals

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...

If you've ever walked down an alley late at night, and realized about halfway down that alley, that you were in a rough part of the town, and, alone, and it was late- you realize just how quickly safety can become much more of an issue than we'd like to believe.  If you've ever been driving along in your car and suddenly it gets bumpy and the steering gets funky-and you have to pull over- and you realize, it's a bad place to be - you realize quickly how safety can become much more of an issue than we believe. If you've ever been in an open forum discussing points of view and your point of view is not the one everybody else is sharing- wow wee, do you ever realize, quickly, how safety is an issue.  In your virtual life, on Facebook, or Twitter, or MySpace (practically dead as a social media tool now, from what I hear?) or on your cell phone with APPS (which is becoming much more popular amongst young folks or so I hear?) or YouTube- can your s...

GALA - What a word...  - Pro 18:1 - Proverbs 18:1 "A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire;  He rages against all wise judgment. The Hebrew term for the translated "intermeddleth" ("rages against all) Rage which sounds more like networking and sharing in our age, doesn't mean that at all.  The term is "gala" which is pronounced just like we say the "gala ball." It means, however, to expose or lay bare, to bring ones self out in contention.  Wow- that's quite different from what you might have imagined, isn't it?  Yet that is wisdom, we think we get it, but usually, we have to learn it. "Gosh I feel warm and fuzzy..." "O.K., already Dana, you don't have to beat us over the head with it,"  yes, but sometimes that is such fun, wouldn't you agree?  I can remember when a friend and I used to wrestle in the front yard, it was fun; seeing who could get on top and wi...

The Wave- a sports attendance, and I'd guess, concert attendance spectacle, the person next to you jumps up and you do to- and as everbody does this, all over the stadium, it turns into a graphic wave when seen from a distance.  What a modern phenomenon of what has been taking place since time immemorial, a gigantic wave of those who decide, consciously decide to give up their pride and arrogance toward their maker and come on board- the wave.  Why do we say pride and arrogance have to go?  The problems which come with displaced pride interfere with the growth of a disciple.  The problem of arrogance blinds a disciple to service.  Being a disciple simply means that you will learn from the one doing the teaching.  But it is there, at the concept of learning, where most discipling today, breaks down- because you can't pretend to learn, you either learn or you do not- it's not a gray area where you can pretend that you get it, but you don...

Leadership is a learned art, it can be modified, it can be taught.  Jesus taught 12 men now to be leaders, one of those men decided he didn't buy it- the other eleven bought it to such an extent that they died as a result of the teaching and changed the world forever.  This teaching at this link  [CLICK HERE] is by a leader in the field of how to get people to cope with crisis- but more importantly to Christian's today- how to adaptively lead.  Professor Heifetz is amazing in his insight and ability to make a very difficult subject make sense.

I used to laugh as a pastor and tell people from the pulpit that if they were "stabbin me in the back, it was cool, I had a big back, and they weren't stabbin somebody else, who maybe couldn't handle it as well."  Only guess what, not everybody is big and just comes right up to your face and says, "hey, I don't like you and what you said, (or did)."  Now what happens is, they do something on the sly, they tell little inuendos about you.  Nothing big where someone would get all excited and say, "well gosh I can't believe you'd say something like that about them."  No no, they are much slicker than that, they jab the blade in a little at a time- makes 'em feel big I guess, I don't know- I try not to go down that road - but- and here's where it gets weird- it's hard not to. This is maybe something that you face as a person who wants to walk with Christ.  As you get closer to Christ, the forces which can seek t...