Welcome to my website! I started this website to share things I’ve learned on my journey as a husband, father, grandfather and church elder. You’re welcome to join me as we learn together how to “make every effort to add to your faith”. Read on to learn where to start, what’s on the site and how to become part of the community. Note that some pages on this site are for registered users only. Please register, then I’ll activate your account and send you a temporary password.
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In this stanza, the psalmist talks about how to fully understand the amazing Word that he described in the last stanza. In v. 97-99, he talks about meditating on the Word. Meditating on the Word all day long helps him to be wiser than his enemies and have more insight than his teachers. Meditating on God’s Word is a path to full understanding of what God wants to tell us through his Word. Next, in v. 100-102, he talks about obedience and how it leads to more understanding than the elders, and that obedience leads to a desire to keep
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After closing the first half of the psalm with a prayer stanza, the psalmist begins the second half with thoughts about what God’s Word is and what it does. To start the psalm’s first half, he used the first three verses to talk about those who follow God’s Word – those blessed by walking according to the law and keeping the statutes. He then talked about what followers do – understand obedience and promise to praise God and obey His Word. In the second half, the first three verses (v. 89-91) talk about God’s Word, then uses the rest of
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This stanza marks the end of the first half of Psalm 119, and the psalmist closes the first half with what the NIV Study Bible says is a prayer. In this prayer, the psalmist spends the first half focused on his weaknesses, then the second half calling on God to help him. The psalmist mentions his weaknesses: v. 81 – spiritual – his soul is longing for salvation v. 82 – emotional – his eyes are weak, like in v. 7. Where he uses the analogy of weakness eyes for longing deferred v. 83 – physical – wineskins weakened by
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It’s finally here (almost) – Reach 2016! If you’re attending, and you run across my website, please register for access (see “Subscribe to Blog via Email” to the right). I’m currently posting lessons on Psalm 119, and there are lessons I’ve presented recently at worship services and devos. Also, I’ll be posting some past lessons I’ve put together on marriage, parenting and spiritual disciplines, and I’m in the process of writing a few books – as I develop these, I’ll post many of the chapters and other notes. Please join me, and together we’ll “make every effort to add to your faith…”.
| Date: |
July 7, 2016—July 10, 2016 |
| Event: |
Reach 2016 |
| Sponsor: |
International Churches of Christ |
| Venue: |
St Louis Convention Center |
| Location: |
St Louis, MO
USA |
| Public: |
Public |
Our congregation has a great tradition from over the years called the “Passing the Torch” night with the teen ministry. It’s a special teen devotional that celebrates graduating high school seniors and welcomes students entering high school along with their parents. This year’s event featured some great fellowship time and lawn games (including some spirited tug-of-war battles), a lesson and a ceremony where an actual torch was passed from the group of graduating seniors to the new high schoolers with an inspiring charge given by our teen minister. I was honored to be asked to teach the lesson for the
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Over the last few stanzas, the psalmist has expressed his feelings about God and the Word: Zayin (v. 49-56) talked about comfort God provides through remembering His laws, Heth (v. 57-64) talks about security by walking in God’s Word and Teth (v. 65-72) mentions how God teaches us in times of persecution when we obey his precepts. In Yodh, the psalmist provides a bit of a summary, with stanzas in an unusual structure. The verses of Yodh form what the NIV Study Bible calls a “concentric structure”, with similarity of verses in pairs from beginning to end: 73/80: these verses
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Communion is a time to consider what Jesus did for us on the cross. By taking away our debt of sin, he gave us forgiveness, but what does that really mean? Colossians 2:13-14(NIV) 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross Here Paul uses a legal term to talk about how our sin was a charge against us involving indebtedness –
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Christians, from the earliest 1st century followers to today, view Jesus as Lord and Christ – the Master of our lives and Savior who gave his life to save us from our sins – and he is all of that, but more… In the OT book of Isaiah, there are four passages that some commentaries refer to as the “songs of the servant” – prophecies of the Messiah. The first of these is in Isaiah 42, after Isaiah talks about how God will come and comfort his people, who were in exile, and that God is superior to the enemies
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After talking about the comfort and protection that God’s Word brings, the psalmist explores how God delivered him from being afflicted – he mentions how he was afflicted before he went astray (v. 67) but that by obeying God he realized God’s goodness. He realizes it was good to be afflicted (v. 71) because it helped him to learn God’s decrees. Without God’s Word we often can feel the weight of problems and feel afflicted – like somehow God is causing us to have hardships. But turning to God’s Word shows us the goodness of God, that he is looking
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After discussing remembering and comfort in God’s Word, the psalmist talks about security he finds in the Word and it’s connection to obedience. He talks about promising to obey and not hastening to obey, and about how the Lord is his portion (what he is given to meet his needs), and that God protects him from straying in his ways, being bound by the wicked and through his friendships. By walking in obedience, we are protected from just doing what we have learned or decide we want to meet our needs. When we have the attitude of “the Lord is
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