The Sound Word

1 Chronicles 16:25 For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; Today we celebrate President's Day. Or do we? In what is truly a large mess, most people are not sure what day they are celebrating. Officially, some of us are celebrating Presidents Day, some are Celebrating Washington's Birthday, and some are celebrating other incarnations of a similar name or title with various places for the apostrophe or names to the actual day. Seems Presidents' Day is looked upon as being most official as Webster's Dictionary , The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , and The Chicago Manual of Style (a publication I had never heard of before today, but since it sounds so high-brow I thought I through it in just because…) all use it in that manner. And for that matter, unless you are a civil employee or a business that deals mostly with governmental or banking agencies for your business, you are not off today anyway! I'm not. If you are in a business t...

I was enjoying our family night together last night, and something came to me. It's something that I have spoken on before, and actually, we covered a very similar point just last week while going through I John 5. My schedule is packed during the entire week, so Thursday nights are a precious bastions of peace and family time. We take turns each week going through each member of the family choosing an activity and a dinner meal. Last night it was Cutter's turn and so the evening had Tony's pizza and the Wizard of Oz on the schedule. Both the Tony's and the Oz are big favorites of mine and so we settled in for a comfortable traditional pizza and a movie scenario with the fireplace tickling us with its radiant heat. Discussion during any family movie is always interesting, and this one was no different. We each have favorite parts and we still debate whether or not the flying monkey scene is really that scary. Of course the older you get the less scary they seem, and...

It is amazing sometimes how much credit we give to the devil on some occasions, and how little we give him on others. While we surely do NOT owe this father of lies and bringer of death any honor, we do need to respect his powers. Let me share with you what I mean. Some people will leave home so late for church that there is really no way they can get there in time anyway, and yet they will blame the devil for their tardiness. They will tell you how they hit 3 out of 4 red lights along the way, and the Starbucks drive-through had 4 cars in line when normally that time of day it usually only has 2, and somehow this is the devils fault. In this case the only thing the devil should get credit for is causing you to lie to yourself. Then there are people who, being surely tormented by the devil (in whatever that situation might be), who would rather blame themselves for 'not having enough faith', or for their 'past', or because they watched a PG-13 movie last week, or be...

I recently went to a men's conference and was blessed to have been taught by both Jon Courson and Greg Laurie. I'm still trying to figure out which message ministered to me more, and am not sure if I'll ever know. [note: The messages can be downloaded HERE .] While at the event, I spent $20.00 and purchased a book written by Greg Laurie titled, "The Greatest Stories Ever Told – Old Testament Vols. I-III". I did not have to go too far before God laid something before me that inspired me to expand on those thoughts here. I give Greg Laurie total credit for the inspiration behind this devotional… and he did not even hug me like Jon did! People have lived and died; civilizations have thrived and then been lost to history because they seek something "more". What that 'more' is, they do not know. That's why they seek it. This makes perfect sense, in a dog chasing his tail, or an insane man running circles around the inside of a rubber-walled r...

In a devotional last week I used the 'polarizing' to introduce some topics that seemingly had nothing in common. What they did have in common however was the fact that when brought to conversation, they almost immediately divide people into camps of opposite extremes. Some topics just seem to have no middle ground, or what little middle ground there is seems to be a minefield! With Christianity and our love for Jesus, this too seems to be one on that list of polarizing topics. How many of us have rules that at family gatherings that we do not discuss politics and religion? I personally do not have such a rule (IMHO no Christian should), but I do know of one man who does make this his rule, in spite of the fact that he is a sitting board member of his local church that he has been attending for 60 plus years. This is unfortunate. This being past the 'age of enlightenment', one would think that being able to discuss any topic, regardless of its polarization factor, w...

Gun control, health care, abortion, euthanasia; all topics that have little in common except their ability to almost immediately polarize and divide a crowd. In the same manner, Christianity is facing internal polarizing division as well. In the case of the Christian church, the division is not new. But with the ever increasing liberalization of the world, and the greater number of Christians who choose the liberality of the world over the biblically dogmatic moral absolutes, Christianity is facing some real issues, most especially in America. Sean Hollen, Sr. Pastor of Harbor CC in Aberdeen/Hoquiam, WA. once shared this analogy with me. He said that the church is supposed to be like a boat. The sea of water that the boat floats on is the fallen, sinful world. The purpose of the boat is to float ON the water. By staying on the surface of the water, where she is designed to be (by her designer), she will fulfill her intended purpose. What a great analogy. Digging into that of that a...

Last Sunday for our time of worship in church, we sang Joy to the World. It has been spinning around my head ever since. Christmas time IS about the birth of Jesus, the Christ, the Savior of the world. Why should this not be the joyous season of the year? And why should all earth not receive her King? The answer, because receiving the King means we must give up ourselves. But in a world of instant internet gratification, and a population blinded by consumerism, it is easier to fool ourselves into rejecting what it true, so that we can live a life that is false, and yet, oh so gratifying. It should come as no surprise that the King is rejected. Some reject simply as a matter of rejecting all things that represent authority. When the King not only wrote the laws from the foundation of the earth, knowing that they are all fulfilled by grace and love… AND, that only the King can rightly judge a man's heart – THAT my friend is authority. Some reject out of spite to the King, or to other...