Critical Lessons from the Temptations of Jesus

We just celebrated the miracle of the incarnation. Paul explained what an incredible sacrifice Jesus made when He left the glory of Heaven. Instead, he gave up his divine privilege;    he took the humble position of a slave    and was born as a human being. (Philippians 2:7, NLT) That transaction allowed Jesus to fully experience the frailties of being human. Because Jesus was human He no doubt faced temptations throughout His life. Jesus had siblings and didn’t sin! That is a largely overlooked miracle. When the time arrived for Jesus to begin His public ministry Satan knew he needed to derail the redemptive work of Jesus. His strategy was to throw everything he could muster at Jesus in the form of three temptations. Satan knows the weakness of the flesh so these temptations were the best and most effective in his arsenal. The temptations and the order are so important for us to understand. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into
Continue reading...

Childlike Faith and a Postcard from God

A few of you noticed that last week’s Monday Musing became a Tuesday Take. The reason was a little detour to the local Emergency Room. I felt a little off on Sunday but didn’t think much about it. I planned on calling the doctor on Monday but my body had other ideas. I began to develop a fever and shakes like I have rarely experienced and you already know the word that popped into my head. Covid. Joni loaded me up and headed to the ER. She said I was a little disoriented but I would submit it is hard to tell when I am oriented. At any rate, I checked in and got the Covid brain tickler along with a several hundred other tests. The quick Covid test came back negative. The diagnosis was a bladder infection and they began massive antibiotics. Just to be sure and to heighten my enjoyment I got the more sensitive Covid swab brain
Continue reading...

Don’t Pack Away the Hope of Christmas This Week

This week we will finish one of my least favorite tasks of the year. Taking down the Christmas decorations always makes me melancholy. I love Christmas and the message of hope it brings. That God entered human form and gave us hope in a Savior who understands our struggle. We will pack up a treasured Nativity creche that has been a part of our family tradition for decades. That miracle in Bethlehem is where I place my joy as I head into a very unstable New Year. I find my joy in the Messiah, the Lord – who was born in the city of David. It is so easy to remember the reason for hope during Christmas. But now that we are past this wonderful season it is also easy to pack my hope away in the attic and unpack lots of worry. The twenty-four news cycle feeds on negativity. Hearing the message of gloom and doom over and over has it’s effect
Continue reading...

A Christmas Miracle

One of my favorite Christmas stories happened during the horrors of war. The Christmas carol “Silent Night” was actually responsible for a wartime Christmas truce. The year was 1914 and soldiers were having to spend Christmas Eve night on the World War I battlefields of Belgium. After only four months of fighting, more than a million men had already perished in the bloody conflict. The bodies of dead soldiers were scattered between the trenches. Enemy troops were dug-in so close that they could easily exchange shouts. On December 24, 1914, in the middle of a freezing battlefield in France, a miracle happened. The British troops watched in amazement as candle-lit Christmas trees began to appear above the German trenches. The glowing trees soon appeared along the length of the German front. Henry Williamson, a young soldier with the London Regiment wrote in his diary: “From the German parapet, a rich baritone voice had begun to sing a song I remembered my German nurse singing to me…. The grave and tender voice rose
Continue reading...

The Miracle in a Manger

One of my contributions with these modest little musings is to continually ask the tough questions. While listening to  “Away in a Manger” my inquiring mind kicked in. You likely know verse three of the song. The cattle are lowingThe poor Baby wakesBut little Lord JesusNo crying He makes As I listened an important series of difficult and probing inquiries popped into my head. What noise, exactly, were the cattle making when they started lowing? Was this normal cow talk? Did lowing just sound better than mooing in the lyric or is lowing a more spiritual and reverent cow sound? And then the most important question came to mind. What is wrong with me? I can’t answer the last question but I can help with the others. Lowing is defined at dictionary.com as “the characteristic sound uttered by cattle; a moo”. So little baby Jesus was awakened by the characteristic sound uttered by a cow. That would not have flowed well in the lyric so I
Continue reading...

The Spiritual Cost of Worry

I see a lot of worried people around me. Worried about the pandemic. Worried about the election. Worried about all kinds of things. But this old proverb rings true today. “Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” As I get older I experience more and more how practical Scripture is for daily living. In the teaching of my youth the Bible was a book of lofty and seemingly impossible demands to behave in a way that would please God. Now I see that the Bible is a love story where Jesus met those impossible demands on my behalf. I see now that my simple faith and trust pleases God. And I see a practical book that shows me how to find joy during this temporary journey on earth. The Designer knew when we left the factory that worry is destructive. The study above merely confirms what Jesus said a
Continue reading...

A Little Perspective Before November 3rd

We live in such an unsettling time. A global pandemic. Disunity in our nation and even among our church family. Political anger that destroys relationships between family and friends. If my focus is on social media and the news things might seem completely hopeless. But my focus is not on those things. My hope is not in Washington, D.C. My hope is in the finished work of Jesus. This life is just the warmup act for followers of Jesus. A classic tune from the Righteous Brothers reflects my hope. If you believe in forever,Then life is just a one-night stand. Those lyrics reminded me that even if you hit triple digits on the age odometer this journey is still an eternal blink of the eye. Your significance is not how long but how well you live your life. Not how much fame or money you gain but what you do with time you are given. This weekend a song popped
Continue reading...