Presby-Musings

This week the Daily Devos are going to be focused on one very simple idea:  Changed people can change the world.  In other words, if you want to change the world, the change you seek needs to begin in you. 

Each day this week, we're going to be exploring practical ways that we can open ourselves up to the transforming power of God in your life.  I hope that these devos will become action items in your life, as I will be striving to make them in mine. 

Today we're going to offer up a challenging action item that can have a deep and lasting impact on your life if you choose to embrace it:  See differently.

Jesus once told his followers: 
22 The eye is the lamp of the body. You draw light into your body through your eyes, and light shines out to the world through your eyes. So if your eye is well and shows you what is true, then your whole body will be filled with light.What Jesus was inviting his followers to do was to learn to see the world differently.  Essentially he was telling …

This week the Daily Devos are going to be focused on one very simple idea:  Changed people can change the world.  In other words, if you want to change the world, the change you seek needs to begin in you.  

Each day this week, we're going to be exploring practical ways that we can open ourselves up to the transforming power of God in your life.  I hope that these devos will become action items in your life, as I will be striving to make them in mine.  

The first step we're going to be exploring is one that might not make a lot of sense at the outset.  It's a bit of an oxymoron, to be honest.  But when you dig into it, you'll discover that there's life-changing truth embedded in it.  Here it is: 

Begin before you are ready. 

So many people spend their lives preparing for something that they never start because they don't want to start until they are "ready." 

I see this pretty often in my role as a pastor.  People will put off getting involved in a faith c…

Today we are going to continue our sermon series, "Home Wreckers: Guarding Your Family God's Way." 

The idea behind this sermon series is pretty simple:  Families in our culture are facing a number of issues--any one of which could completely wreck them. 

And Christian families are no different.  In fact, studies have shown that Christian families are struggling at as high or higher rates as non-Christian families when it comes to these issues--namely: Busyness, Lack of Communication, Financial Troubles and Lack of Spiritual Depth. 

So each week of this series we're going to tackle one of these home-wrecking issues as we learn how to guard our family God's way. 

Today we're going to be talking about talking. 

What I mean is, we're going to be tackling the issue of Communication, and more specifically how the right kind of communication can either make or break your family bonds.  Here's our big idea for today--the one thing I want you to remember if you fo…

I've been to the gym now several days in a row this week, and I have an appointment to meet my trainer today, who promised me she would give me workouts to complete over the weekend. 

Baby steps, man.  Baby steps. 

The problem is, I'm in that stage of things where what I know and how I feel are not connecting too well.  I know that I am doing the right thing, and I also know that at some point I'll regain the stamina, strength, and endurance I lost after months of not doing much of anything by way of exercise.

BUT at this moment, I don't feel all that great.  I hurt everywhere.  I am all too aware of how soft I've become and I'm fighting despair over the fact that it's going to take so stinking long to get back to where I was before all of this.

I am glad that I've got someone holding me accountable because, if left to my own devices, I would probably throw my hands up in the air at this point and go get a bunch of tacos.

Sometimes, when we are faced with th…

This morning I read the following snippet from Psalm 103 as part of my daily Bible reading: 
15 The life of mortals is like grass,    they flourish like a flower of the field;16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,    and its place remembers it no more.As I read those first two verses, they struck a chord with me and stirred up my imagination. 

Perhaps they did so because we are days into a brand new year, and I've been reflecting on how fleeting time seems to be.  Or maybe it's because of the aches and pains I am feeling this morning from yesterday's workout at the gym (ouch!). 

At any rate, I couldn't help but recall the words of Shakespeare, who wrote the following lines:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth)Here's the thing, if you spend too much time living in the rear-view mirror---wishing that you…

I'm not great at keeping new year's resolutions.  I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually followed through for an entire year on something I resolved to do on or before January 1st. 

The one that stands out is when I made a resolution to read a book a week for an entire year.  I managed to keep that resolution somehow, and also managed to surpass my goal of 52 books by more than a few.  

What I learned from that exercise was that I was, in fact, capable of keeping resolutions and that the habit I formed by voraciously reading was one that carried over into a regular thing.  What I once thought a next-to-impossible goal eventually became part of my everyday life.  

You might be sitting there reading this devotion today and you have already given up all hope of making and then keeping all kinds of resolutions that you know you ought to make.  

You very well may have come to believe that there's no way you can change your direction or plot a different course…