Which ditch are you willing to die in? All of us who are parents have probably faced that question with our gray hair producing teenagers. Was it the long hair, loud music, makeup, dress, language, or that really annoying rolling of the eyes look? Each of those ditches is how they test your value system, what you consider worth standing up for, who and what you worship. Worship is a built in ability. We were born to worship. If you really think about it we worship…

Aren't you glad when you pray that you don't get the usual automated phone voice that says, “Thank you for holding. We value your call. Your call is special to us and we will be with you in just a moment. So please remain on the line and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.”? That's not just once either. It continues on for many minutes until a real person gets on the line. Access to the Lord is instantaneous, in the Spirit and heard in spite of our imperfection…

Walking back into our memories can sometimes be fruitful not only for ourselves but for our younger generation as well. They will of course have to travel their path to becoming adults but we can be ready at times to share with them the difference between this world with its definition of being free and God's understanding in Jesus. Follow the thought here and be thankful we have a Savior and Lord to worship and share in every next moment.

Graduation night is a big night regardless…

Pinnacle, summit, peak, top, crest, apex, height, roof, tip, brow, point, apogee, zenith, capstone, climax, ultimate, optimum, acme, eminence, crown, supreme, cap, head, tower, vertex, loft, ceiling, meridian, spire are all words that describe the place beyond which there is no other. For those who believe in God it is He that populates every one of those words. Every language has their own set of words to describe absolute perfect superiority. All of them point to the essence of their…

'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only (Mt.4:10).”

When you are worshiping God you are serving Him and when you are serving God you are worshiping Him. It's that spiritual. It's that personal. It's that relational. It's that dynamic. Can you see the Cross in this verse? From the very beginning of the appearance of Jesus in the flesh there is this sense of the vertical and horizontal. The prophecies about Him, the Virgin birth, His constant references to the Kingdom of God, His…

"Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average (Garrison Keillor-Prairie Home Companion)."

You probably recognize that closing from Keillor's shows on PBS. Those words and his programs caricatured the images of small town America with its historic ethnic roots in which people looked at the TV depicted life of glitz and glamor outside their towns as bizarre and fleeting. Even in caricature it…

Olympic Gold. Lombardi Trophy. World Cup. Those three symbolize the crest of achievement in the world of sporting endeavors for individuals and teams. Imagine the dedication demanded in setting a performance goal, a rigid tiring training regimen and concentrated daily practice held in the vision of standing on the podium receiving the world's highest honor. That is human worship in a nutshell.

Now shift your gaze to the every day individual like each of us in the massive sea of images…

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only (Mt.4:10).”

We're going to look at this verse as we dig deeper into the subject of worship. This is the bottom line answer to the three temptations the devil throws at Jesus (Mt.4). Those temptations sum up all the daily invasions that are launched against us as believers. If you'll notice it's not the huge circumstances that face us every day. It's the seemingly small nuisance variety that get to us. These are the ones that point to…

One of my jobs when I was a chaplain to prep school students opportunely allowed me to coach track among other sports. I had two extremely gifted runners that I spotted as future collegiate athletes. The rules of the school didn't allow us to take students farther away than the local town just a mile away. It was especially difficult to train them in the Winter with no indoor facilities. The closest indoor track was at Dartmouth College, 40 miles away. They were too good not to train and…

It's really hard to leave this theme of worship. Again, worship is involving yourself in what you consider the most valuable thing in your life, what is worth giving your time, talent, money and energy to embrace. Worship is where you place your devotion, what has the most worth to you, worth-ship, worship.

Yesterday (2/5/14), I watched a TV spectacular. The Seattle Seahawks, winners of the 2014 Super Bowl, rode in a parade attended by over 700,000, a crowd larger than the city's…

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Those recognizable words from the program Star Trek give us a feeling for where the Sermon on the Mount is leading us. If you can see yourself as a spiritual being having a human experience then you are a spiritual being created to explore what lies behind the physical…

The following is an article from Jay Haug by James Emery White well worth reading and doing a bit of personal research as a follow-up.

"After the umpteenth email, tweet or call saying, “Could you say a few words about why they are myths” following my “25 Myths” blog, I gave in. Fortunately, most wanted just a few lines that could be used in general conversation, not an entire apologetic.

So here we go: "

Christianity is clearly anti-intellectual.

If Christianity is…