HARMLESS THOUGHTS

This week's subject: School .

This week I will be preaching at Edgewood Baptist Church. I have been going through the Sermon on the Mount and I am currently studying Matthew 5:7, the next in the line of Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which states, "Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy." In my studies I always find that I am afforded opportunities during the week to experience, in some way, exactly what I will be teaching. This week has not been any different. I had an opportunity this week to show mercy, but I flopped. Miserably. I am so thankful for a merciful God. I always pray that God will help to understand what I will be talking about, and then He gives me these real-life experiences to do some real learning. I am saying all of that because I want to share a mercy quote with you. This one is from A.W. Tozer in his book "The Knowledge of the Holy" : "When through the blood of the everlasting covenant we children of the shadows reach at l...

I am probably not as good as most teachers when it comes to "getting back into the teaching spirit." I do love to teach... just in-general... I love teaching things. I don't love some of the aspects of being a teacher: Paper work, motivating students, dealing with parents, dealing with discipline in the classroom, grading, more grading, confronting students on poor grades, etc. I don't hate these things, I just don't love them. In fact, I down-right dread some of them. For example, I would love to be able to start the year by saying, "If you want to learn, or if you know that you need to learn this and have become resigned to doing it... then stay here. If you don't want to learn and are going to fight it every step of the way, I wish you weren't here. I would love it if you would change your mind, but if you won't, then I wish you would go." Of course, I can't do this, but I wish I could. I admire those teachers that really get i...

I am currently on my family vacation. Every year my wife's side of the family takes a little vacation. They always get some sort of cabin or vacation home... something big enough for all of us... and we get together for a few days. I usually spend the spare moments of this vacation catching up on my reading. I just finished the book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer. It was a really good book. The first few chapters were the best chapters that I have ever read on the sovereignty of God. At least they were the best that I can remember reading. Maybe I will write an official "review" of this book in a few days. Since I finished that book, I started reading The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink. (Why is it that so many of my favorite authors go by their initials and their last name? C.S. Lewis, A.W. Tozer, J.C. Ryle, A.W. Pink, J.I. Packer, R.A. Torrey, etc. Hey, I should start doing that!) I just read the first chapter and thought that it was pret...