Posts from December 2023
His Blessings Are Eternally Satisfying
This Sunday I will partake of the Lord’s Supper for the 3,819th time. I vividly remember the first time I sat at His table and meditated on all that Jesus had done for me. I have never tired of that time of meditation, and communion is even more moving now than it was that first time. There are some things that we must never count as ordinary and outdated. Consider these timeless, eternal truths that are part of our soul.…
“Let Me First”
Every parent (and probably every teacher) knows what this is like. You tell your kid to do something and the immediate response is something like, “Ok, but first I’m going to do this other thing.” What’s going on in that response? “This other thing” has taken priority over whatever the child has been instructed to do. The child thinks he/she knows better than the parent and that what he/she wants to do is more important. Fortunately, kids grow out of…
Two Perspectives on Rebellion
As Israel’s “old” and final judge was nearing his last days, the elders of Israel gathered to Samuel and made their demands. The first thing they basically said was, “We don’t want you or your sons!” And then they laid out this directive, “Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8:5). Notice several things about this demand. Their timeframe for this change was “now.” They were done waiting. They wanted satisfaction to their…
“Little” Sins, “Big” Sins and Full Grown Sins
Sometimes we mistakenly think of the magnitude of sins in a wrong way. We talk of “little” sins as being those which really do not “count” because they seem so innocent when compared to major blunders which only the most ungodly do. The Catholic Church even has the same view of sins which are characterized as venial and mortal sins. When one has this mindset, he struggles to figure out how eating fruit from a tree in the Garden of…