Archive for August 2020

August 21, 2020 DAILY READING 1 John 2:7-17 Psalm 119:1-8 FIELD NOTES Look, we can all admit that relationships are hard.  People mistreat you.  They gossip about you. They attack your character.  Perhaps even worst of all, they completely ignore you. And yet, we see in the text that if we hate, we are still “in the darkness.”  Do you…

August 20, 2020 DAILY READING James 1:12-16 Psalm 119:1-8 FIELD NOTES “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.” The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis God didn’t make us do it.  Neither did the devil.  It was us all along.  We let our…

August 19, 2020 DAILY READING John 8:12-30 Psalm 119:105-112 FIELD NOTES Scholar N.T. Wright says about Jesus in his study, John for Everyone: “He and his father are giving evidence that he is the Messiah; but if this is so, he is bringing the light that they cannot escape.  As he has come to realize, at the…

August 18, 2020 DAILY READING 2 Corinthians 4:1-12 Psalm 119:105-112 FIELD NOTES Is there anything worse than the feeling of hopelessness?  I am hard-pressed to think of a worse feeling.  And yet, unfortunately, all of us will eventually be in that space.  Eventually we all find ourselves in a moment where the odds seem stacked against us.  Maybe our…

August 17, 2020 DAILY READING Romans 11: 2-10 Psalm 119:105-112 FIELD NOTES This sobering passage reminds us of this simple truth: we are not special.   Sometimes our desires for ourselves cloud our view of those around us.  We let jealousy, and really, our own sense of superiority dim us to the light of those we deem…

August 15, 2020 DAILY READING Luke 4:13 – “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” FIELD NOTES While most died, attempting “going over Niagara Falls,” one Englishman survived it in a barrel. Years later, he had a horrendous injury from slipping on a banana. Oh, yes, I…

August 14, 2020 DAILY READING Luke 4:13 – “When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.” FIELD NOTES To avoid temptation, a seventeen-year-old girl went to jail. What was her temptation? Her getting married to an older man! While she knew she should not marry him, she couldn’t…

August 13, 2020 DAILY READING Luke 9:62 – Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” FIELD NOTES It’s time to deal with the “shoulda’s, woulda’s, and coulda’s!” I make major mistakes, resulting in my being an expert in the “shoulda’s, woulda’s,…

August 12, 2020 DAILY READING Luke 4:1-13 (Jesus faced three temptations in the wilderness.) FIELD NOTES Wanna a quick fix? We want instant cures to Covid-19, the end of all discrimination, the end to our political divisions, the return to a healthy economy, and solutions to our particular problems, aches, and pains.  The main prayer request…