2/27/24 Lent Psalm 65 From Mike Courtney I was grafted into the Leviner family. My widowed Aunt Ruth married widower Uncle Marion Leviner and I somehow was adopted by the whole clan. It was nice but it wasn’t really significant until my family moved, and I found myself as a high school sophomore attending… Continue Reading
2/23/24 Lent Psalm 60 Remember this is Lent, a season that Christians have traditionally “tried” to identify with the passion and pain of Jesus as He made His way through the last weeks of His earthly, pre-resurrected ministry and life. We give something up. We fast. We take on an added spiritual discipline, in part,… Continue Reading
2/22/24 Lent Psalm 59 Look! I’m trying to give David the benefit of the doubt, but he is wearing me out. These middle psalms, Psalm 50-70, are just one rant after another against David’s enemies. “Deliver me from my enemies, O God; be my fortress against those who are attacking me. Deliver me from evildoers… Continue Reading
2/21/24 Lent Psalm 58 “Why do the wicked prosper?” is probably one of the most perplexing (and often asked) philosophical questions. I don’t mind so much that my life is not hunky-dory but it sure grates on me that the other guy, and I know he’s not doing right, is getting ahead. When my dad… Continue Reading
2/20/24 Lent Psalm 57 Poor old King David. His middle name could be Whiplash. He is as up and down as anybody I know. All you have to do is read the Psalms to see that. One minute he is despairing he ever lived. “Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I think I’ll go eat… Continue Reading
2/19/24 Lent Psalm 56 During Lent we are reading a psalm together and letting it direct our prayers. For a list of our selected psalms got to the blog for 2/16. There’s an old joke about two friends hiking in the mountains. All of a sudden, a huge bear steps onto the trail and… Continue Reading
https://youtu.be/Na6AQntGZuk?feature=shared Are Christians allowed to be assertive? What does it mean to “speak the truth in love”? The issue of being assertive and being Christian always seems to be a difficult task. Christian assertiveness seems like a contradiction in terms. It is not only possible, but probably important for the Christ follower. Here is a… Continue Reading
Lent Devotion February 16, 2024 Psalm 52 Each day of Lent read through a Psalm and make it a prayer. I’ll attach a suggested list at the end of this. (It’s not too late to start.) Larry Thompson was my 7th-grade nemesis. He was old for his age. A 7th grader with facial hair, fully… Continue Reading
Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. Many of us took on the mark of sorrow and mortality in anticipation of the suffering Christ did for us at Easter. We did that at our church last night. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent. Lent is the season of the spring where Christians all over the world focus… Continue Reading
Hasidic Jews can be roughly compared to Charismatic Christians. Like Charismatic spirituality, Hasidism is a passionate and expressive expression rather than the orderly, dispassionate affair of mainstream rabbinical Judaism. Abraham Joshua Heschel makes this point several times in his book, God in Search of Man. One important difference between the Hasidim and Christian Charismatics is… Continue Reading