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The Lust of the Eyes

“And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” – Ephesians 1:22-23 Yesterday, we looked at the lust of the flesh and talked about how obsessing over physical desires can make our lives vulnerable to the enemy’s destruction. Today, I want to share with you another way the devil seeks to wreak havoc in our lives — the lust of the eyes. We live in a world that is obsessed with appearance. In fact, many of us learn to obsess about our image, or what we look like to those around us, even before we are old enough to understand why. Our materialistic society teaches that in order to be somebody, we must have certain things. In other words, I am what I have and I

February 25, 2022 1 Comment

Jealousy Perverts Justice

“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” – Matthew 2:16 It’s strange that the account of a neurotic king like Herod offers so many object lessons to Christians, but in a world that’s obsessed with image and achievement, it behooves us to pay attention to his story. We saw yesterday that he built multiple monuments to himself that now live only in ruins, and today, I want to talk about something else significant we can learn from his life — that jealousy perverts justice. After working hard to earn his title as “King of the Jews,” he was determined to hold onto it. The problem was that it had already been

March 17, 2021 No Comments

You’re Not What You Do

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” – Ephesians 2:8,9 I’m passionate about people understanding their worth apart from what they do. This is the heart behind the Creed of the Beloved that we say each week at Shepherd’s Grove, and it’s something that I believe we continually struggle with societally. Of course, our bent toward defining human value based on achievement goes back centuries, first to the Roman Empire, one of the greatest and most influential civilizations in the history of the world. Rome was the first meritocracy, which means that attaining power and influence in their culture was based entirely on accomplishment. So true was this that families would permanently memorialize notable members using something called death masks. Moments after a person passed away,

March 14, 2021 1 Comment

Authenticity Over Appearance

“So all the people went to Gilgal and made Saul king in the presence of the Lord. There they sacrificed fellowship offerings before the Lord, and Saul and all the Israelites held a great celebration.” – 1 Samuel 11:15 Today, I want to begin talking about the story of David and Goliath, which happens to be one of the most famous and taught passages in the Bible. However, contrary to popular belief, I don’t think this tale is a miracle story as much as it is a moral story. That said, before we dive into learning about the characters in the account, here’s some important historical background. Though they were under the Lordship of Almighty God, the Jews wanted a king so as to be more like the other nations of the earth — they desired to have a human figurehead to represent them. Commissioned to appoint their first ruler,

November 17, 2020 2 Comments

The Lust of the Eyes

Jealousy Perverts Justice

You’re Not What You Do

Authenticity Over Appearance

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