Morningside Devotionals

What did James know that will help us There are substantial debates going on in the world - and in fact heated fights, beyond even arguments, over the fact of bias, over prejudice, over someone feeling they have been mistreated.  So isn't it appropriate, and outrageously so, that these thousands of years ago the one who lived with the one who created it all, would write about it?   1 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the...

What did James know that will help us Ever been standing in a line, waiting to go into an event, suddenly there is a bustle in the crowd, a limousine pulls up, someone you don't necessarily recognize steps out, before they do, the bodyguards precede them, opening the door to the limo.  And they are escorted to the door and then go inside, while you're standing there?  That's not to hard to take, because you're going to get in, right? But if adjust the circumstances just a bit, from an event, to something perhaps, slightly more important, say, an organ; and suddenly the idea or concept of deference to the wealthy, takes on a whole 'nother level of sting, don't it.  Now imagine that you're the wealthy person.  Flip the mirror a bit and you begin to see that something is askance, and it may not be you. Let's spend only a moment or two on the subject of making a Greek text from a couple thousand years ago mean what it meant, and should mean and like...

What did James know that will help us?      If there is any doubt left in anybodies mind about the times being different today than they were just ten short years ago, take an honest look at the LGBTQ movement that didn't exist then.  This entire block of protest oriented movement has come into it's own with the last five years, it might have had an undercurrent existence, but it wasn't mainstream in it's wide proclamation until the last five years.  And it represents a minority shift in values being projected onto the majority and that's new as well.  What do I mean by that, a minority, not many people register as a member of this sex declaring sect, they don't have big numbers of members, but they sound like they do, and they make anyone who takes any sort of opposing stand seem out of touch with modern thinking to put it kindly.  What does this have to do with the writings of a disciple and church leader thousands of years ago?  They had s...

What did James know that will help us?     You and I, we, are in the midst of the most massive delusion making reality shifting technologies ever in the history of man.  Let's try to think of it this way, Bill Gates, a name you recognize as one of the worlds wealthiest men, founder of Microsoft one of the worlds largest and most prestigious computer companies; put it in these terms, "Not since the Gutenberg printing press has a revolutionary upgrade in technology had such a powerful effect as the computer."  [Business at the Speed of Thought] Gates wrote that theorem in his landmark work two decades back!      In those days we discussed the potential to do quantum computing, today, it happens.  In those days we discussed virtual reality, today we have online virtual communities where people choose their identity and interact.  While it is still less than totally real, it's only about two years away until the average person will be able ...

What did James know that will help us? What do you believe is going to happen to you next- not this thing that has happened to you, maybe you've been told your health is shot, maybe you've been told your bills are too high and your ability to pay is diminished, maybe your best friend has turned on you and said unbelievably cruel things in a very public place like Facebook-  there are literally hosts of things that can happen that are bad.  Label that the present bad, and think of it that way, this is now, this is bad, but what do you believe is going to happen to you next?  It appears from the text in James herein displayed as the Berean Bible Interlinear- so the Greek is placed therein, with the English not an easy thing to accomplish but the Berean's are a very faithful group of translators that seem to be very sincere in keeping the translation as clean and true to the writing as possible. Above the Berean Interlinear is an New International Version (NIV) translati...

“ Springhill is growing…hallelujah” “Let my lifesong sing to you...”   Timothy Hardaway, Minister of Music and Education Central  Baptist Church, Springhill Louisiana. There are few people alive today who really get leading worship- now before you go jumping up and down about that statement, slow your roll, and realize, the people chosen by God are different than the people who aren’t, and that difference was first strongly, incredibly, pointed out to us by Adrian Rodgers, and before him, many other men of God who realized that it was possible for someone to lead people about Jesus and God and be without the Holy Spirit, be frauds- be incapable of just “Getting nuts,” about Jesus, because they were never, born again- as Christ said to Nicodemus, “You must be born from above.” How could a man or a woman pretend such to be true? Gosh folks, seriously- you’re living in a world where yes has become no, red has become blue, truth has become what the last loudes...

What did James know that will help us? Self identifying, it's a way of saying what you are that is systematically accepted by those institutions which have chosen to honor such a declaration.  It is usually about gender, although it can be about other things; these days it is mostly about gender choice, and it is showing up on insurance forms, college admission sheets, used car rentals (hard to see that one, isn't it?) and many other forms of data where what you identify yourself as makes, apparently, a difference?  Is there a problem with this?  In the social media age, is that problem even more rarefied?  One of my associates calls himself a homosexual Christian, that's a form of self identification; one almost has to shudder at what that form of self identification would have gained a person standing at the base of Mt. Horeb? We're going to take a few discussion points into this narrative as a commentary, and try to make relevant a document written a c...