Hey micro.blog community, if you’re looking for a theme that just “works” and is highly customizable, check out Tiny Theme by @Mtt. He has really crafted something useful.
I’m pretty proud of myself at the moment! I dont' know anything about html or css but after some googling, I figured out how create a clean little “hamburger menu” for The Pastor Next Door and few other little tweaks. Now, if I can just figure out how to center the profile pic, title and subtitle…
Hanging out on my patio on a February afternoon in Michigan? I will take it!
Psalm 22:23-31; Genesis 15:1-6, 12-18; Romans 3:21-31
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
All of these passages are remarkable.
I am amazed by the fact that in Genesis 15:12-18 Abram is told there will be a time of enslavement. This promise from God is not going to be simply roses and puppies. No, there would be hardship. There would be need of saving.
Then, this passage in Romans 3 is always one that leaves me shaking my head in awe and amazement. Why? Because it undoes so much of my self-righteousness. It is the great reminder that is Christ’s faithfulness and God’s action that sets people right with God. We don’t add a thing to it. There is nothing that we do.
God in God’s grace sets the world right by Christ’s faithfulness.
The grace that God lavishes on God’s creation is without limit. It is effective and unstoppable. God’s grace brings about its intended result.
I am recognizing again that I need to keep on killing off my ego. There is so much self-righteousness in me that has yet to be dealt with on so many levels.
Today, I’m wrestling with this question, “What do I trust more, my own self-righteousness or God’s grace in Christ?”
This just makes me even happier that I have made the switch to micro.blog.
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This week we launched a new pricing model with up to 5 blogs for Micro.blog Premium. See Manton’s blog post for why we made this change and what it means for existing accounts.
”Good morning! May your morning beverage bring you joy and may you be content today. #MorningMug #MorningBlessing
These are some of the best of nights.
Good friends.
Lots of laughs.
Another video test to check how it looks on my current theme.
Another reason why I’m on micro.blog. @manton and his team do things right with users front and center.
I think I am about it ready to begin podcasting again. Here’s my current thought:
Begin by transforming my series of posts on disentangling (deconstructing) faith into podcast episodes and seeing where that takes me.
A few of you know me a bit by now, what else would be of interest? 🎙️
Currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov: A New Translation by Michael R. Katz by Fyodor Dostoevsky 📚
A sunny day and nice pipe and diving into a bucket list read.
Psalm 77; Proverbs 30:1-9; Matthew 4:1-11
The tempting of Jesus in the wilderness by the enemy is one of those stories that I find to be quite insightful. It is also one of the stories that challenges me deeply. I’m not sure that I’d be able to pass the test.
As I think about this passage again this morning I am more and more aware that the interaction has a lot to do with power.
The first temptation is about food. I think I would call this the power to provide. Jesus has been fasting for forty days at this point and the enemy tells him to turn the rocks into bread (there are rocks in Palestine that look like loaves of bread). As a dad and a husband I feel a lot of pressure to provide. Not from anyone else, but from myself. I think if someone said, “Hey here’s this thing, just do this, and you’d have the power to provide forever,” I would probably do it and not think about it. Yet, Jesus in this moment determines to trust God to provide.
The second temptation is what I would call the power to protect. Jesus is tempted to throw himself off the top of the Temple to prove that God would protect him. Yet, Jesus determines not to put God to the test. Again, if I were offered the ability to have unlimited power to protect myself or my family what I do? I would fail the test. I want to say that I’d be willing to hold on to my principles and trust God but, I’m just not sure.
The final temptation is simply power for the sake of power. The enemy says all Jesus has to do is worship the enemy and all the world would be his. What would it take for me to de-center my worship of God? If I was offered the power over the kingdoms of the world would I take it? Again, I hope that I would choose to trust God. But, I just don’t know. In the Lord Of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring, one of the key moments is when Gandalf refuses to take the Ring of Power from Frodo. He says that he would use it for good but it would corrupt him. When we are promised this kind of power it will inevitably corrupt us.
The upside down way of Jesus is sacrificial love. It is loving enemies and neighbors. It is choosing the cross over saving ourselves.
Good morning! As the sun rises over my neighborhood it reminds me that there is beauty everyday if we just watch for it. May you see the beauty in the mundane today. #MorningMug #MorningBlessing
I’ve decided that I have to read Brothers Karamazov. I have started it a couple of times and never pressed on, but it keeps coming up over and over in my reading. I feel compelled to read it. 📚
Hey Micro Blog community, which theme handles video the best?
"Two words one could never think of applying to the Jesus of the Gospels: boring and predictable. How is it, then, that the church has tamed such a character — has, in Dorothy Sayers’ words, “very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified Him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies”?
From: The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey 📚
It strikes me that when we focus our attention on the Jesus that we meet in the Gospel stories as opposed to the cultural Christian Jesus that we have invented we will find ourselves shocked by what we find. Jesus is a wild man. There is absolutely nothing safe about trying to live like him.
Psalm 77; Job 5:8-27; 1 Peter 3:8-18a
Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.
No exceptions.
It seems that we live in a world where we try to make exceptions to living the way that Peter describes here all the time. To seek to be agreeable, sympathetic, loving, compassionate, and humble we are told simply do not work any more.
It’s a fascinating thing to me that many Christians will tell you that we ought not live by these principles because it means that “enemies” of the faith will win.
We have so lost our way that to live by these principles is something that is considered “weak.”
No exceptions.
There is not any wiggle room here. There’s no “…but politics” or “…but culture war.”
Nah, if I claim to follow Jesus I am to live this way, all the time, no exceptions.
If I am trying to make excuses or devise exceptions to live as one who is agreeable, sympathetic, loving, compassionate, and humble then I need to take a good long look in the mirror.
Good morning! May you practice integrity rooted in love today. #MorningMug #MorningBlessing
The Bear is so dang good. With every episode it rises in the ranks. 📺
I am hosting our Elders for a Session meeting. The plan was to offer crock pot roast. It didn’t really cook, though it had been in the crockpot for 5 hours.
I’ve shifted it to the oven. Hoping it turns out.
I have to say that the support here on micro.blog is absolutely top notch.
“Of the many reasons for Incarnation, surely one was to answer Job’s accusation: Do you have eyes of flesh? For a time, God did.”
From : The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey 📚
For so many years I regularly thought of Jesus as this divine superman. I am so intrigued by his god-ness that I missed his ordinariness. Yet, now it is his sheer ordinariness that most attracts me. This man who ate, drank, got annoyed, ran away from people, teased his friends, and took naps but also introduced the world to grace.
I am drawn the man. I am drawn to the homeless, wandering Rabbi.
Psalm 77; Job 4:1-21; Ephesians 2:1-10
I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.
I’m not sure that there is a more comforting phrase for me in all the Scriptures than, “He listens.”
“He listens,” is a complete sentence.
It is remarkable to me that when I cry out to the Divine the Divine listens. I am constantly on a quest to understand what amazing grace means. As I sit here this morning with many things on my heart and my mind, I am struck by the reality that it is amazing grace that God listens.
Why would God listen to me? What is it about me that God would take any notice? Why would God care about what I have to say?
Because God loves me.
I love my children with all of who I am. When they talk, I listen. Even when they were small and couldn’t speak coherently I took great joy in listening to their rambling and mumbling. I don’t know anyone who ignores a baby that is talking to them, particularly when it’s your own child.
I imagine this must be what it’s like for God. This Creator God, the holy one, the sustainer of the universe, loves his creation without condition. This love, apparently, leads God to this place of intimacy where God listens.
This morning I’m pondering this question, “Do I really believe that God listens because he loves me?”
Good morning! May you start your week well knowing your identity is not tied to your accomplishments. #MorningMug #MorningBlessing
You can catch up on my Disentangling Faith series right here: Disentangling Faith #Faith #Christianity #Religion