I have a fancy Blackberry. It is not just a phone with a colorful screen. It is a device that allows me to see my email no matter where I am. I receive over 100 work-related emails a day. Many of these emails require action on my part. Left unattended, they fill up my mailbox. The Blackberry allows me to maintain a sense of sanity. The Blackberry is affectionately called a CrackBerry by its users because of the addictive nature it has. It is easy to become quite addicted to having this constant access to email and communication with your peers. That got me thinking about the concept of constant communication.

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I have a new puppy named Abbey. She is a German Shorthaired Pointer, or Deutsch Kurzhaar, if you prefer. She has quickly become part of our family. She is an active dog with a penchant for swallowing the kids’ socks whole and then throwing them up in the middle of the night. She gets very excited to see any member of the family, and often pees a little due to her excitement. She is easily humored, loves attention and knows when she has done wrong. I have seen her happy, sad, excited, and tired. But there is one emotion I have not seen from Abbey. (Read on …)

Last week, we read about a nameless man of God in 1 Kings 13. I call him moG. He was given a task by God and he obeyed God. When we left him, he was leaving Bethel on his way home. Perhaps he was skipping or at least had a bounce in his step. He had confronted the king of Israel, given an important prophecy, and destroyed the idolatrous altar. He had witnessed a miracle. He was offered a reward, but he refused the invitation to stick around. He had obeyed God precisely. I see him as being content with his day’s work and hopeful for the immediate future of Israel. Things were about to get very bad, though. (Read on …)

There are thousands upon thousands of names in the Bible. Each person named in the Bible has a story. Sometimes we are able to read their story. Other times we know very little about them, or nothing at all. Sometimes we tell big stories with relatively small amounts of information (Jabez, Jonah). Other times we have so much information, it is impossible to make a singular story (Moses, David). But every now and then we come across someone whose story is more important than even knowing their name. One such person is simply defined as “a man of God” from Judah. I will call him moG. (Read on …)

Hi,

1 John 2:15-17 says this: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

John gives us three things to avoid: the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and pride in possessions. I realize that every theologian has an opinion about what these three things actually mean. Some people probably see them as very vague and all-encompassing. Others may see them as very specific things we should avoid. The truth is that these three things may mean different things to all of us. When we look at Scripture as a whole, we can find a consistent message. (Read on …)