Godly Insights for the 21st Century Life

 "The thought that makes me smile now Even as the tears fall down Is that the only scars in Heaven Are on the hands that hold you now." ~ " Scars in Heaven " - Casting Crowns     The sermon this past Sunday was about Jesus appearing to His disciples after the Resurrection, Thomas not being there, and his subsequent doubt. While this is a typical sermon topic for the Sunday after Easter, this time I started thinking about how this story relates to the song quoted above. What Thomas needed to see to believe in the Resurrection were the scars on Christ's body.     Revelation 21:4 states, "Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." To me, that means that any limitations we had in our lives, including our scars, are gone once we enter those pearly gates. I know a woman who struggled with mobility problems her whole life, which required her to wear ugly orthopedic shoes. After she died earlier...

      Recently, I've noticed a disturbing trend within the church: the refusal to use pronouns when referring to God and Jesus. I had noticed the deacon at my church doing it, and while it annoyed me, I thought that it was just one of her quirks. Then, I noticed the same thing happening in the Lenten devotion I am doing. Now, they are still using You and Your during their prayers, but they are not using He, Him, or Himself. What they seem to be forgetting is that the entire reason why proper pronouns exist as a part of speech is to use them to refer to God and Christ.     Imagine, if you will, that St. Paul also had this aversion to pronouns. In that case, Philippians 2:6-9 would read like this:      "Christ was like God in every way, but Christ did not think that Christ's being equal to God was something to use for Christ's own benefit. Instead, Christ gave up everything, even Christ's place with God. Christ accepted the role of a servant, appear...

      I had planned to write about something different in this post. I almost always have a few different ideas for posts that I draw from each month unless there's something more pressing to discuss. Well, this month, there was something more pressing.     On the morning of February 19, I called my care receiver for our biweekly check-in. She didn't answer, so I left her a message on her voice mail and sent her a text. I was a bit worried, especially since I hadn't been able to talk to her on the 5th either, but I knew that sometimes she had issues with her phone, so I thought that maybe that was happening again. Unfortunately, that wasn't the problem this time. About an hour later, I got a text from her number saying it was her sister and asking me how I knew her. Before I could respond, the sister called to inform me that she had died a week earlier.       I am thankful that though she is gone now, I was able to give her a sense of peace t...

      Watching Jeopardy the last few weeks has been exhilarating. Amy Schneider won 40 total games, which puts her in second place for all-time wins. What's even more impressive is most of those wins came from runaway games. Her knowledge of a myriad of topics was inspiring, and her buzzer speed was excellent. Before her loss last Wednesday, I thought she could have easily overtaken Ken Jennings' amazing winning streak from 2004. You would think that every fan of the show would have been cheering her meteoric rise to game show stardom, but that wasn't the case. The reason: while she may be female now, she was born male.     In a previous post , I discussed some of my thoughts about transgenderism. While I may not agree with it, that doesn't mean I didn't want Amy to keep winning. I appreciated her good gameplay even though I don't agree with her choices. Being transgender didn't negate the fact that she was an excellent Jeopardy contestant.    ...

      Like I do almost every year, I spent Christmas at my aunt's house. Our family gathering was smaller this year than usual, but it was still just like always in other ways. We had some of the same arguments that we have every Christmas, some of the gifts were loved by the recipients while others missed the mark, we all ate too much of the delicious food, and the kids were the stars of the show. As the day progressed, I did notice one element that is present within my family that is sorely lacking in the world as a whole: acceptance of each other's opinions, particularly regarding the vaccine.     My family runs the entire spectrum when it comes to the vaccine. A few members are fully vaccinated, including their booster shot. Two people are only partially vaccinated because of bad reactions to either the first or second dose. A few of us aren't vaccinated at all for various reasons. Some have medical issues, some don't trust a vaccine created so quickly, and ...

     This summer, Mom and I did some cleaning around the house. One of the things we found was an old CCM magazine talking about the upcoming book and CD set chronicling the 100 greatest songs in Christian music. While the article hinted at some of the songs featured in the countdown, we were really curious to see the entire list. While we could find the track list for some of the CDs, we couldn't see the entire list without reading the book. We had to use an inter-library loan to get it, but it was worth it to be able to uncover the mystery of which songs made the list.     My parents and I really enjoyed reading the book and seeing the choices that the editors made. Some of the songs on the list came as no surprise. (Among the top five were " Awesome God " by Rich Mullins, " Jesus Freak " by DC Talk, and " I Can Only Imagine " by MercyMe.) Some of the songs I knew well, but not their original versions. (I've sung " Soon and Very Soon " ...

We're living in a world that keeps breaking But if we want to find a way to change it It all comes down to this Love God, love people ~ Danny Gokey, " Love God, Love People " I initially wrote a post based off of this song in August of last year. While much has changed in the 14 months since then, unfortunately, many people are still having trouble loving others the way we are called to. In fact, I feel like some people are less loving now than they were then. As Christians, our priority should always be loving others the way Christ has loved us.  Going back to the roadmap presented in 1 Corinthians 13, here are some of the areas I've noticed still need a bit of work. Love is kind:  The member of our monthly circle group I mentioned in the original post  finally came back to our group in April. Mom and I enjoyed spending time with her and catching up on the last year. That was, of course, until the subject of the shot came up. She asked Mom and me if we had gotten it,...