Trial by Fire

On July 15^th, 2026 a storm cluster delivered over 2,000 lightning strikes to Central Oregon, and coupled with high July temperatures and strong prevailing winds, the result was multiple fires in remote rural locations. Today, several days later, Central Oregon is on fire. The fires in Central Oregon have wreaked devastating havoc on our community, and I’ve given a bit of brain time in all of this to the consideration of vocation. On my way home a few evenings ago I observed a wildland firefighter pulled over at a wide spot on Hwy. 26, securing a load and prepping his fire rig for what was coming next. Yesterday I saw an incident command center going in east of town with tents set up in a dirt field. As of today, the fires have already made their way deep into the Maury mountains and are now making a run at Grizzly Mountain, McKay Saddle and the Ochoco range. My son-in-law, who works for the local Forest Service office, calls these incredibly damaging fires,”unprecedented.” I got word tonight that four known-to-me families are facing evacuation.

 

What do the Oregon fires have to do with vocation? Let me try to explain. Sometimes Christians think of vocation in bifurcated terms…the sacred and the secular. One is spiritual service and the other (much less significant) is ordinary service. The funny thing is that Bible never makes such distinctions. Well, maybe I should qualify that statement. One of the interesting thoughts that is introduced in the New Testament is this idea of the ‘priesthood of all believers’ (1 Peter 2:5,9). What this means is that all Christians share in access to God, and offer to God spiritual service…no matter what they do. For the Christian, work is worship, and there is no qualitative vocational difference between a pastor and a longshoreman or a homemaker. The Apostle Paul made a vocationally revolutionary statement when he wrote, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Cor. 10:31 ESV). Paul is telling the Corinthian Christians that their lives, from something as ordinary and mundane as eating and drinking, can participate in a God-exalting act. The inference is that God can be glorified in everything (including vocation!) in our everyday lives. During the time of the Protestant Reformation this put sparks to the dry tinder of an exclusive clergy and a seemingly insignificant laity. Check out what the Reformer and father of the English Bible, William Tyndale (1494-1536), said about vocation,

 

“There is no work better than another to please God: to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a shoe repairman, or an apostle, all is one; to wash dishes and to preach is all one.”

 

Author Derek Brown, commenting on Martin Luther’s view of vocation, had this to say,

 

“Luther refers to our vocations as ‘the masks of God.’ We encounter the baker who prepares and supplies our bread, but behind this baker is a gracious Creator faithfully providing for his creatures. Far from serving as a mere means to a more spiritual end, our work has an inherent dignity and value because it is God’s chosen means to provide for his creatures.”

 

So, what does this have to do with fires in Central Oregon? In my mind it has everything to do with them. In a very real sense, the firefighters in Central Oregon are doing absolutely critical work, and in their work, God is glorified. Some wildland firefighters may be conscious of the connection and others likely not so, but in their fulfilling of their vocational calling, good is being done and God is being glorified. Wiser theological heads call this ‘common grace’…something done for the mutual benefit of others.

 

In all of this; in the hard work of those fighting fires, good is being done and God is being glorified, and for this I am profoundly grateful. Thank you wildland firefighters, and airplane pilots, and helicopter pilots, and ground crew logistics experts, and water truck drivers, and all those serving on the front lines to keep the flames at bay. There are Central Oregon communities that are grateful for your vocational callings. Thank you for the risks you are taking, and thank you for what you’re doing. We see you glorifying God in an extraordinary way.

 

         

The Last Enemy

Last week a couple of friends and I rode our motorcycles up to Walton Lake, in the heart of the Ochocos. The lake was closed, but on the route, and just prior to the Ochoco Ranger Station, is a cemetery of surprising size, especially for a remote, rural location. A couple of summers ago I walked through it, taking note of the number of graves, and taking time to read many of the grave markers. This old Crook County cemetery is called the Howard Cemetery and its oldest grave is dated from 1892. The Howard Cemetery, and indeed every graveyard is a reminder of an unavoidable appointment that awaits each of us.   

 

One of the more unpleasant subjects to consider is the impending reality of death. It will come for one and all without regard for social status, ethnicity, preparedness, relative health, and age. Death is the great equalizer…all will experience it. Comedian Woody Allen attempted to bring humor to a serious subject by quipping, “I’m not afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” There is a natural aversion to death. We’ve all thought about it at one point or another. We all know it’s inevitability; we just don’t want to be there when it happens.

 

The big fear for most us is the unknown. Death is an alien interloper. For now, all we’ve known is life, and beyond the dark vale lies the unknown. We resist death because deep inside we know that death is not the way it’s supposed to be. This past week I was informed that a high-school classmate was nearing her death. A message sent by mutual friends, to notify those who knew her, that her death seemed imminent. I had seen her last year at a class reunion and there was no indication that less than a year later she would be gone. 

 

It’s interesting to me that the Christian faith does not avoid talk about death. Early on in the Genesis narrative, that narrative that sets the stage for human history, death is introduced as both a reality and an enemy. God introduces death as an unwelcome stranger; the tragic result of man’s rebellious machinations. The result would be the certain demise of every living thing. The entire cosmos would be affected. It was only a matter of time. 

 

The final word on death is seen in Bible’s narrative, found in Revelation where John writes of Jesus, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Rev. 21:4, ESV).” Death shall be no more. The unwelcome intruder will no longer have its sway.

 

Between the Genesis narrative and John’s pronouncement in Revelation 21 lies a story. In this account there is something to be learned about death. Luke 8 recounts a story told about a 12-year-old girl named Talitha. Talitha was the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue ruler. In the course of events, and we don’t know how, Talitha had died. As you can well imagine, and as a result of her death, folks had gathered to mourn her. There was great grief surrounding her death. The ethos of this story is strong. Most of us can empathize with losing someone very dear to us, particularly a young daughter. The pain would be beyond bearable.

 

However, in a twist of plot, Jesus, as the God-man. recognizing the tragic death of Talitha, does the impossible. He raises her from the dead. He intervenes in what has happened for thousands of years. He interrupts the inevitable. In Talitha, Jesus puts death to death.

 

What is seen in the Luke account is the in-breaking, or the interruption, that Jesus would bring into the natural course of events. In Talitha’s case, death would be arrested, taken captive, and death itself, put to death.

 

The lesson to be learned here is that Talitha wouldn’t be the last. Talitha would be a foretaste of what’s coming. Even John could see it in the distance as it approached. In Jesus’ own death and resurrection, Talitha would be a preview. Talitha would be the embodiment of a promise, secured by Jesus Himself. Talitha would be the assurance that a day will come when “…death shall be no more.”  

 

When the Apostle Paul refers to the death and resurrection of Jesus, he says something very important regarding our mutual enemy, death. He writes to the 

Corinthians, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Cor. 15:26, ESV). Paul saw death’s downfall, and that death would have no place in the future.

 

For now, we mourn. We see the cemetery. We grieve for loved ones now gone. We wrestle with our own finitude, but, be assured, death itself will die. Death will be swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15:54 ESV).

- DJM 

5/18/2026

Continually Amazed by Grace -

“May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” 

– 2 Peter 1:2-4

“He (Peter) refers to the boundless goodness of God which they had already experienced, so that they may place a greater reliance on Him in the future. It is a consistent mark of God that He prosecutes His course of benevolence right to the end, unless we interrupt it by our faithlessness. His power is inexhaustible and His desire of beneficence (good toward us) is equally so, and hence the apostle rightly encourages the faithful to good hope on the basis of God’s former benefits. His words of amplification are to the same purpose. He could have said more simply, ‘as He has fully given us everything’, but by using the expression ‘divine power’ he lifts his argument to the higher consideration of how God has unfolded the vast resources of His power.”

- John Calvin, Commentary on 2 Peter, p. 328

“The act of calling us is a demonstration of God’s own glory and goodness. These two characteristics are highly personal; the adjective ‘own’ modifies both terms. Moreover, the two terms, although in a sense synonymous, differ. We are able to observe glory with our eyes (compare John 1:14), and we become aware of goodness (praise) with our minds and hearts. Conclusively, God reveals his essential being through visible glory and he displays his goodness in his deeds.”

- Simon Kistemaker, New Testament Commentary on 2 Peter, p. 247

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

- C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pp. 3-4

Dear Friends,

When you really think about it, how amazing is grace, anyway? I’m afraid many times we think of God’s grace towards us in small measure. I’m afraid we think small thoughts of grace because we think small thoughts of sin and small thoughts about God’s holiness. We often don’t realize the depth and the pervasiveness of sin and as a consequence we don’t recognize the breadth and boundlessness of grace. God has become far less in our eyes, because salvation doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Morbid introspection is never good, but neither is a cavalier and uninformed sense of our own sinfulness. We will never be amazed by grace or never truly understand the gospel without at least a modicum of awareness of our deep need for a Savior. Dear friends, we were hopelessly lost without Christ. We were the just recipients of God’s wrath and judgment. The sinful woman loved much, because she was forgiven much (Luke 7:37-50). Could it be that we love little, because we’ve been forgiven little? Could it be that we worship only a little, because we’ve only been forgiven a little? Could it be that we are only a little thankful, because we’ve only been forgiven a little?

Peter writes and says that God has called us to His own glory and excellence with precious and very great promises. He uses the superlative to describe what God has done for us in Christ. We have become partakers of the divine nature. This is not some weird Gnostic language, but rather, because of God’s work of beneficence (Calvin’s word) towards us in Christ we have grace and peace and glory and excellence and life and godliness in abundance. And not only has saved us from the wrath to come, by grace we have become partakers of the very character and nature of God. Brothers and sisters, God’s salvation of sinners is not stingy. It is abundant and amazing grace that He has demonstrated toward you.

All of our days may we always be truly amazed by grace.

- DJM

Vocational Frustration - A Christian Perspective

How, as a Christian, am I to both interpret vocational futility, and respond to vocational futility, in a manner representative of a faithful Christian?

 

Let’s attempt an answer…Genesis 3 describes the world turned upside down.  Labor prior to the Fall was good and had God’s commendation.  Adam labored in joy and in harmony with creation.  The Fall did not introduce labor or work into the world, the Fall introduced frustration and futility into man’s charge to labor as part of God’s creation mandate. 

 

It’s interesting that the first recorded murder in the Bible is the result of a labor dispute.  The Tower of Babel is a demonstration of man’s ‘working’ to create a utopia without God.  It’s also interesting how large of role both labor and frustration in labor play in the biblical storyline.  With this familiar biblical refrain, vocational conflict should not surprise us…in fact, we should expect it. 

 

Because of God’s workmanship, initially, the creation itself is a place of beauty and felicity. And then at the introduction of man’s rebellion in Genesis 3 and because of man’s rebellion against God, the language of beauty and goodness and divine approval give way, and we are introduced to the language of curse, and thorns, and thistles, and sweat.  The language of ‘curse’ found in verse 17 of Genesis 3 refers to the withdrawing of God’s favor.  

A creation designed for dominion and rule begins to groan and sprouts thorns and thistles…Cain and Abel…the Tower of Babel…the vanity of Ecclesiastes…and so on.  The theme carries through the Old Testament and begins to come into clearer focus in the New Testament.  In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul gives the most exhaustive and logical analysis of God’s redemptive plan.  In chapter 8 he begins to explicate the glorious future that awaits the recipients of God’s salvation.  In verses 20-22 he hearkens back to Genesis 3,

Romans 8:20-22 - For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

 

For now…futility.  The whole creation groans.  Everything is a bit off.  We live in a world that cannot possibly ever be right…at least not for now.  But what do we do in the interim?  How do we respond?  How do we survive 80,000 – 100,00 hours of occasional vocational satisfaction with lots of vocational trouble?

 

In 1977 country music singer Johnny Paycheck recorded a #1 Billboard hit.  It stayed on the charts and was Paycheck’s only #1 song. The country singer had resonated with country music fans with the lyrics, ‘Take this job and shove it!’ Soon the song became a catchphrase for disaffected employees.  There may be times when even we feel this way, but how do we live (vocationally) as Christians in a fallen world? 

 

If we are to believe the Biblical record and square it with common experience there is frustration, disappointment, and discouragement in our labors.  Even the greatest work God has undertaken in the work of redemption through His Son was subject to frustration.  And consider the reality of God using frustration and futility in His work of redemption.  Opposition and even overt sinfulness were an important and integral part of God’s redemptive work. Here’s the takeaway…in our vocational disappointment, and there will be many, whether we are a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, our experience in futility is not for nothing, nor is it outside of God’s sovereign control.  In our experience of vocational disappointment God is not absent.  

 

We can be assured of vocational frustration…just ask any housewife or mother of young children.  Her vocation looks like a mountain of laundry that never completely goes away, the bathrooms that never clean themselves, and meals that always need to be made.  But how much more difficult would it be to know that God is absent in our vocational frustrations, rather than knowing He is present and sovereign and places Himself directly in the middle of them.  Now, this ain’t easy stuff, but consider the alternative….  Without minimizing the reality of sin and sinful behavior by others and ourselves, and the difficulty of thorns and thistles in anything we put our hand to, God is not an absent deity when it comes to even the most minute details of our lives, including our vocational callings.  We are Christians and not Gnostics.  God is not repulsed by His creation or uninvolved in everyday and ordinary life.  God’s redeeming work includes Him redeeming our vocations.  

 

There is a very real war taking place in our vocations…ask any young mom trying to get dinner on the table with three young children pulling her in innumerable different directions, or ask any young dad working two part-time jobs so his family can make rent, or ask the middle-aged empty nest mom whose trying to find her sense of value with no kids left at home, or ask the newly laid-off 60-something husband/father/and now grandfather with no prospects for employment and too little saved for retirement.  Is there any hope?

 

Check out Genesis 3 and Romans 8.  If you get a chance to look at them both, as each passage describes the frustration introduced into the world by the Fall. It is supremely important to note that both passages have redemptive repercussions as well.  Genesis 3 provides the promise of One that would begin to reverse the effects of the Fall (3:15), and Romans 8 makes plain that though frustration would be introduced into the world God Himself would not abandon His creation, but, in fact, would provide hope (8:20) in its chaos.  You see…we have a problem that we cannot remedy ourselves.  We cannot be part of the cure…at least as the fallen sons and daughters of Adam.  We need One to reverse the effects of the Fall and we need hope in our frustration.  In a very real sense, we need a new Adam, a true son of God, that will be a new worker in God’s world.  We need a perfect man, able to do the works God requires, without sin, or grumbling, or equivocation.  We need an advocate, one who knows our weakness and our frustration, our sin and temptation, and yet not only is our stand-in in our infirmity, but also provides His vocational perfections for our imperfections.  We need a sovereign Redeemer in every sphere we find ourselves in, including vocational redemption.  And in Jesus Christ we need a new identity.  We are condemned by Adam’s vocational curse, and we are desperate for the new Adam’s vocational redemption.  We need hope and God has provided it in the new Adam…the new Adam as God’s faithful worker in everything God has given Him to do (Hebrews 3:1-6).

- DJM 

3/10/2026

 

Redemptive Speech -

“Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.”

- Proverbs 4:24

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.”

- Colossians 4:6

“For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”

- James 3:7,8

“It may seem too obvious to say, but Genesis 1 makes it plain that the first words ever spoken were spoken by God. Language is not a human invention to be used in whatever way serves our interests. If God is the first speaker, then language is his creation. This means that our ability to speak was given to us by the Creator and it exists for his glory. Everything we will ever say belongs to him and should be used for his purposes. Words, in short, have a high and holy calling.”

- Tim Lane and Paul Tripp, Relationships, A Mess Worth Making, p. 71

“It is time for many of us to confess that we have not known the way of love. Our words have hindered, not helped, what the Lord is seeking to do. We have been controlled by the passions and desires of the sinful nature and failed to represent Christ’s character. We need to cry out for grace to speak loving words as his ambassadors.”

- Paul Tripp, War of Words, p. 229

"It is the nature of goodness to be communicative."

- Herman Witsius

“Please forget the words I just blurted out,

It wasn’t me, it was my strange and creeping doubt

It keeps rattling my cage.

And there’s nothing in this world to keep it down.”

- Radiohead, I Can’t

Dear Friends,

When I think about the things I’ve said over the years my knees get weak. James calls the tongue a restless evil that is full of deadly poison. I can still remember hurtful things I’ve said over forty years ago. A sharp word, a critical judgment conveyed to others, a terse argument, gossip designed to form an opinion – these, and more, are in my collection of spoken sins. My tongue is a restless evil. And there is a sinful satisfaction when the tongue does its work. To refrain from evil speech and to ‘tame’ the tongue is no easy task. It is restless, and the sinful heart is not satisfied until the tongue has its way. When we speak we are simply giving verbal expression to the restless evil already formed in the heart. Our speech reveals our heart and for me this is sobering. By our words we have the power of life and death. When I think about my words I am grateful for the thorough and complete work of Christ’s substitutionary work. Christ’s passive obedience, which is that perfect obedience Jesus rendered to the Father in fulfilling all righteousness, has been credited to my account. His perfect speech, sinless tongue, and unsinning heart have been imputed to me. I no longer bear the just judgment God declares against my sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. And yet, God’s sanctifying work is not yet complete in me. I need reminders to speak graciously. I need my speech, even now, to be redeemed. God, as the first speaker, must redeem my words, and He must do this continually by making my heart new. It will do no good to reform my speech with no change to my heart. I’m praying for God to renew my heart day by day and make it evident by the things I say.

Lord, let my mouth be an evidence of your work taking place in my heart.

- DJM

January 2026

A Plea for Life

'Loving God and loving neighbor are not separate choices. One flows sweetly from the other. Loving my neighbor will always mean a desire to help him or her find the grace of God in all its manifestations. Loving my neighbor will occasionally arrest me, and maybe even require me to help prevent someone from being murdered. Loving God and loving neighbor are never at odds with each other. Those who try to do one at the expense of the other offend both God and neighbor.'

- John Ensor, Innocent Blood - Challenging the Powers of Death with the Gospel of Life, p. 14

'The most fundamental expression of love is care, concern, and protection of human life. The foundational obligation of all government is to protect, sustain, and maintain human life. This is the very reason for government.'

- R.C. Sproul, Abortion, A Rational Look at an Emotional Issue, pp. 87-88

One of the greatest indicators of the church’s commitment to the pro-life cause is whether she will commit herself to becoming dissatisfied with the status quo. Let’s face it; the abortion debate has been around a long time. The destruction of human life far precedes the recent Veritas videos, and yet heretofore the cost to the church has been minimal.  It is one thing, albeit important, to vote for pro-life candidates, and quite another to materially help a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy as she struggles to get on her feet. The pro-life battle comes much closer to home when we invite the stranger into our own living room. To adopt or foster a child is to invest in something far greater than creature comforts, and at the time it's much more difficult to see a return on our investment. It’s a matter of historical record that the early Christians were pro-life, believing that God was the giver of every life. When Roman citizens looked for ways to dispose of unwanted children it was the Christian communities that took them in and raised them as their own. The early church saw the risk and took it. They knew the way of the cross was costly, particularly for their Lord, but they also knew the servant is no greater than the Master.  

 

As long as the church loves her ease and eschews her discomfort it’s likely the pro-life battle will be consigned to a passive yawn. We’ll soon forget the videos and settle back into the routine. You see…to care is to commit time and resources. To care is to cast comfort to the wind. To care is to make hard choices. And frankly, there is a certain risk to it all, and risk is…well, it’s risky. There is a war in our midst, with real bloodshed for the innocent, and as long as the church is satisfied with where she’s at there will be little light and little salt. We shouldn’t wonder why the world then looks at us with eyes aglaze and yawns.

 

- DJM

12/2025

Longing in Hope

There’s a tension that won’t go away. I feel it, viscerally. Try as I might to mitigate its effects the strain is palpable; longing and yearning. What is flies in the face of what should be. No aspect of life has escaped.  We yearn with incessant longing, but as a result of the Fall all of life is often hard and filled with unmet expectations.  Our longing manifests itself in frustration and alienation. Can we escape it? Is it possible to get beyond this tension?

 

What if the tension, and what if the yearning are indications, signposts pointing to something far more significant? What if the incessant longing for something better and different is an indicator of something broken and seemingly unfixable? What if estrangement and its satisfaction here and now are impossible?   In 2002 the rock group Coldplay asked an even more penetrating question,

 

Am I, a part of the cure 
Or am I part of the disease?

 

What if the problem with longing is me? What if the cure I long for is held in abeyance by the contagion I carry? What if the biggest obstacle to satisfying my yearning is rooted deeply inside of who I am?

 

One of my favorite Christmas stories is the story of Simeon found in Luke chapter 2. Simeon, a righteous, clear-eyed, and wizened temple worshiper was a man consumed with longing. He looked at the world around him and saw brokenness. He knew something of the prevalent and encroaching darkness and yet pined for something or Someone better. When the young child Jesus was brought to the temple for the rite of purification, Simeon’s gaze fell upon Him. In that moment Simeon’s yearning, like a man overlong parched for lack of water, found his thirsting sated. For Simeon the answer to the longing was found in deliverance, but even more so, in a Deliverer. Simeon describes his yearning being satisfied by seeing. He exclaims,

 

‘…my eyes have seen your salvation….’(v. 30)

 

In Jesus, Simeon saw deliverance, not just for the world, but for himself. Long bound by chains of his own making, in Jesus Simeon was confronted by his longing, and confronted by his own need and the needs of the world around him. In Simeon’s beatific Advent vision every longing pooled up with satisfaction. Salvation, was found in Jesus in the Incarnation, and in Him the telos (end) of longing, had come. 

 

Simeon wasn’t the only one who longed for something. In generations prior the patriarch Abraham had been whispered a promise. And Jesus, of Himself, spoke as the anecdote to Abraham’s long dormant yearning in John 8, 

 

‘Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.’ (V. 56)

 

Abraham’s longing was rooted deeply in the covenantal framework given to the first woman in Genesis 3. One would come, it said. He is promised, it said. Wait, it said.

 

For all of those like me that still yearn. For all of those that see the brokenness in both the world and in themselves, and long for the overdue mending to come. For those that find themselves longing and waiting, at times impatiently, for things to be different. For those that daily experience the tension that won’t go away…we wait. In this interregnum we wait for the twice-fulfilled promise, once as Bethlehem’s Child and once again soon as a cosmic reigning King.  

 

‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.’

–      Phillip Brooks, O Little Town of Bethlehem, 1868

 

In our longing, we hope.

 

-Dan J. Morse

Christmas 2025

War of the Worldviews

What does everyone need, though everyone has, and yet each of us would likely have a difficult time articulating it, or describing it?

 

We all have one, I guarantee it, and whether we want to admit it or not. We all have one, though we may not know where it came from, and, quite frankly, some of us may even be a bit embarrassed by it.

 

What am I talking about? I’m talking about worldview. 

 

What I mean by worldview is that internal thought process, aided by external influences, pressures, and evidences, whereby we make sense out of the world in which we live. There’s a three-dollar philosophical word used to describe this genre of philosophical understanding. That three-dollar philosophical word is the word ‘cosmology.’ Worldview and cosmology describe how we understand the created dimensions around us. What is the nature of the material universe? Where did it come from? Is it material alone? Is there a spiritual aspect to it? Is the material universe self-creating, self-existing, and entirely explainable by the scientific or empirical method? Or, in or more rudimentary terms worldview and cosmology ask and attempt to answer questions such as who am I? Why am I here? Where did all of this come from? Is there any purpose to life? Are humans only material beings? Is the created world only an illusion? Is there life after death? Are binary gender distinctions a religio-social construct? Or any number of questions that come up in everyday life….

 

Why is our worldview important? Our worldview will determine the trajectory for our lives. How we think about God, how we think about ourselves, and others, and how we think about the universe around us is critically important for how we live our lives in the world. Just look around and you’ll see the maelstrom of colliding worldviews.

 

Where do we get our worldview? I want you to think about how you think? Maybe you’ve never done this before, but you hold certain things…certain ideas, about most everything. Where did those ideas come from? Was the philosopher Aristotle correct in that the mind is but a ‘unscribed tablet’? Or how about the 17^th century French philosopher Rene Descartes who said all humans are a ‘tabula rasa’ or a blank slate. Are we simply an open receptacle for ideas about life and how we interpret them are nothing more than connecting synapse to synapse in everyday experience and translating it into a coping mechanism for dealing with the verities of life? Or, perhaps Freud was correct and we are nothing more than familial impressions and sexual urges formed into a mishmash of behavioral compunctions? Where did you get your ideas about you, and how you understand the world and your place in it? You have a worldview, you have an interpretive grid for understanding life, but where did it come from? And, I would dare say that your interpretive grid is different than most anyone else’s. Perhaps you are entirely secular in your worldview. In other words, you let culture, friends, social media, or whatever else serve as the interpretive grid for how you think about things. Or perhaps your worldview is syncretistic. In other words, your worldview is a little bit religious, a little bit secular, and a little bit of a crap-shoot. You know, whatever floats your boat. Perhaps you’re a pragmatist. You’re going to do whatever it takes to get by. 

 

Here’s the question…regardless of your worldview…where did it come from? And the second part of the question is this…who’s to say your worldview is the best and most helpful interpretive grid? 

 

Are there assurances in life? Is there a worldview that helps me interpret the world that I live in? Are there any real answers? In a world that has seemingly gone mad, worldview matters. It matters for you, and for me, and it matters for this crazy world that we live in.  

 

If you’re interested in talking about worldview, specifically how the Christian worldview interprets at the world around us, I’d love to connect. 

- DJM 

11/2025

 

Kingdom Leverage

 

Several years ago, I remember hearing a story about my wife’s cousin. He and his wife were missionaries in Romania for a number of years. During one of their missionary visits, they were invited to the home of a poor couple for dinner. At just the right moment, this humble couple took out a bottle of Coca-Cola and presented it as a gift to the visiting missionary couple, insisting that they drink it with their meal.  

 

I’m starting to call these simple acts of strategic and preferential treatment – Kingdom Leveraging.

 

In Luke 16 Jesus gives a lesson in Econ 101, the difference is He turns the way we often think about economic common sense on its head. After telling his disciples that they need to be wise and shrewd in how they engage in economic realities, He then makes an amazing statement. Listen to this,

 

“And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16:9, ESV)

 

In straight-forward language, Jesus is telling His disciples to utilize ordinary (unrighteous) wealth to advance Kingdom purposes. This theme is often repeated in the Gospels. In other words, Jesus is advocating using commonplace means to further His Kingdom. The Apostle Paul picks up this same line of thinking in Acts 20, where he says, 

 

“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

 

In a world that tells us we need to love ourselves and get all that we can, Jesus tells us to lay down our lives, take up our cross, and deny ourselves. When it comes to Kingdom economics, the math ain’t mathing.  

 

Here’s how I have been thinking about this…. God has generously given both small and large everyday gifts to His people. There’s not one of us that can say we don’t have anything to give, share, or “leverage” to advance Jesus’ Kingdom. I’m talking about everything from the smallest of God’s every day gifts to the largest of His kindnesses. All of these can be used to advance (read leverage) God’s purposes in the world. Something as seemingly insignificant as a Coca-Cola over dinner is a demonstration of God’s largesse when given to a stranger. 

 

There’s another Bible story about a real woman who had a troubled past (a woman of the city, a sinner) coming to see Jesus (Luke 7). She was chided and belittled by the local cadre of religious leaders, but not so, Jesus. In her gratitude for Jesus’ kindness and the forgiveness He offered to her, she took out a bottle of perfume and wept real tears, washing Jesus’ feet with their mix. She then proceeded to dry Jesus’ feet with her hair. Can you imagine? This woman, moved with gratitude to Jesus, uses a bottle of perfume and her own tears make the declaration of her love known to both Jesus and the world as she knew it. In a word, she leveraged the things she had at her immediate disposal to advance the Kingdom of God.

 

So now I’ve been asking myself the question…what do I have that God can use? What ordinary resources can be leveraged for Kingdom purposes? It won’t do to say I simply don’t have the means and resources to be generous! I have an abundance of skills, personal possessions, and even enough wealth, to offer for use, and I’ll bet you do too. 

 

Along this line, Eric Liddell, the young man portrayed in the movie, Chariots of Fire, said it like this, 

 

“We are all missionaries. Wherever we go we either bring people nearer to Christ or we repel them from Christ.”

Here’s how we can pray, God give me wisdom and help me to think strategically. And God help me to leverage your generosity to me so that your name may be known in all the earth, even if that means gladly serving a stranger my last bottle of Coca-Cola. 

 - DJM 

August 31, 2025

The Storyteller's Story

'Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see." And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.'
-Luke 24:24-27

'Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.'
-Hebrews 1:1-2

'The entire Bible finds its unity in what can be best called holy history - Heilsgeshichte. It is a record and interpretation of the events in which God visits men in history to redeem them as persons and also to redeem them in society - in history. This means finally the redemption of history itself.'
- George Ladd, The Pattern of New Testament Truth, pp. 110-111

'The story is God's story. It describes His work to rescue rebels from their folly, guilt and ruin. And in His rescue operation, God always takes the initiative.'
- Edmund Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery, p. 11


Dear Friends,

The Bible is all of a piece. Sixty-six books with a variety of authors from varying backgrounds and written at various times in various places, and all with a unified story-line. This book stretches over thousands of years of history and each author contributes to the integrated whole. The voices and nuance are different, but the refrain is the same and the story continues to build to a crescendo. The God of history has a story to tell and of His initiative He will tell it. Starting from the beginning, in a garden, paradise was lost. The ruination and sorrow that would follow would be retold in stories of treachery, war, betrayal, misery and bloodshed. 

Thankfully, throughout the story of fallenness and depravity, another story is told. From the beginning a promise was made. The Storyteller would not let ruination have the final say. Genesis sets the trajectory with a paradise lost and the promise of One who would come. Revelation ends with paradise restored through the One promised. The plot line winds its way through the multiplicity of stories like a crimson thread. And at the end of the day our stories are woven into the whole. It is a story of grace unbound and mercy throughout. It is a story of perilous rescue. It is a story of incomprehensible love at unfathomable cost. The God of history has a story to tell.

Thank God for including us in His Story.

- DJM

Why Do I Think What I Think?

What does everyone need, though everyone has, and yet each of us would likely have a difficult time articulating it, or describing it?

 

We all have one, I guarantee it, and whether we want to admit it or not. We all have one, though we may not know where it came from, and, quite frankly, some of us may even be a bit embarrassed by it. What am I talking about? I’m talking about worldview.

 

What I mean by worldview is that internal thought process, aided by external influences, pressures, and evidences, whereby we make sense out of the world in which we live. There’s a three-dollar philosophical word used to describe this genre of philosophical understanding. That three-dollar philosophical word is the word ‘cosmology.’ Worldview and cosmology describe how we understand the created dimensions around us. What is the nature of the material universe? Where did it come from? Is it material alone? Is there a spiritual aspect to it? Is the material universe self-creating, self-existing, and entirely explainable by the scientific or empirical method? Or, in or more rudimentary terms…worldview and cosmology ask and attempt to answer questions such as who am I? Why am I here? Where did all of this come from? Is there any purpose to life? Are humans only material beings? Is the created world only an illusion? Is there life after death? Or any number of questions that come up in everyday life.

 

So, here’s the question, and one for all of us to ask…what is my worldview? What is the interpretive grid that I use to answer foundational philosophical questions about life? Am I able to explain my worldview? Does my worldview make sense, at least from some reasonable perspective? Does it satisfy intellectual inquiry? Maybe for you, you just shrug your shoulders in resignation saying, ‘I just don’t know.’ or maybe your response is, ‘This is what I grew up believing, and so, this is what I believe.’ Have you ever thought about these things? I’ll bet you have. There is an example from the Bible that shows why worldview is important. There are more, but I thought this one particularly poignant. This example is taken from the Book of Proverbs chapter 23, and the first part of verse 7. Here it reads:

 

For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7a)

 

It makes sense, right? If our minds are set in a certain direction, we’ll head in that direction. Have you ever heard of the term target fixation? In driver’s education one of the things they tell you to never do is to look intently at things on the side of the road because you’ll get fixated upon them. Next thing you know, you run over a mailbox! When we spend time fixating upon something it determines our behavior. This passage is making the point that the heart is the determining factor for our conduct. In other words, what you think, will set the trajectory for your life. To put this another way, our worldview, or how we think about God, how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the universe around us, will set us on a path. It’s inevitable. This is no ‘power of positive thinking’ mumbo jumbo. In fact, the Apostle Paul makes the point that part of God’s redeeming work in the life of the Christian is the assurance, and inevitability, of a redeemed mind, one that is able to think God’s thoughts after Him. Listen to Paul’s language in Romans 12, verse 2,

 

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (vs. 2)

 

For the Apostle Paul, in the new life that is imparted to every Christian, there is an exchange of worldview. What once looked like conformity to the fallen world, now becomes a transforming mind-renewal that sees the world from a completely new God-ward orientation. It is so significant that Paul uses the words ‘transformation’ and ‘renewal.’ Christian author and counselor David Powlison says it like this,

 

“To think Christianly is to ‘think God’s thoughts after Him.’ …God sees all things in bright, clear light – and this God is the straightener of crooked thoughts. He makes madmen sane.” (Powlison, David, Seeing with New Eyes, p. 10)

 

This change is so significant that the Christian mind has an entirely new orientation. Christ makes madmen (of which I include myself in that category) sane.

 

My goal in all of this is to get you to think about how you think. Maybe you’ve never done this before, but you hold certain things…certain ideas, about most everything. Where did those ideas come from? Was the philosopher Aristotle correct in that the mind is but an ‘unscribed tablet’? Or how about the 17^th century French philosopher, Rene Descartes, who said all humans are a ‘tabula rasa’ or a blank slate. Are we simply an open receptacle for ideas about life and how we interpret them is nothing more than connecting synapse to synapse in everyday experience and translating it into a coping mechanism for dealing with life? Or, perhaps Freud was correct and we are nothing more than familial impressions and sexual urges formed into a mishmash of behavioral compunctions? Where did you get your ideas about how you understand the world and your place in it? Perhaps your worldview is syncretistic. In other words, your worldview is a little bit religious, a little bit secular, and a little bit of a crap-shoot. The question is, why do you think you think what you think? You may not know, but the Christian faith offers you a new worldview, a new way of thinking and a new trajectory for life. 

If you’d like to talk more, send me a note.

- DJM

(photo of Dayville Community Church, Dayville, OR)