Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
Worshipping Like The Magi
A quiet five minutes can change how you face an entire year. We take a fresh look at the Magi in Matthew 2 and find a countercultural posture that still disrupts our habits today: come to worship, open your treasures, and expect nothing in return. Their journey wasn’t about securing favors or status—it was a focused act of devotion that began with bowing and moved toward giving. That simple order challenges the way many of us pray, plan, and pursue God when life gets loud.
I share why this scene struck me again after Christmas and how it reframed my own routines. Instead of leading with requests, I’m aiming to ask a different question each morning: what can I give you today? We unpack the symbolism of gold, frankincense, and myrrh without getting lost in trivia, and then translate the heart behind those gifts into practical steps for modern life. From honest prayer to small, steady acts of generosity, we explore how a worship-first posture can steady us through a year that will bring both additions and losses in our families, communities, and work.
God’s promises—to be near, to forgive, to love—are not in doubt. The open space is our response. Will we seek him when there’s nothing to gain but him? By the end, you’ll have a simple, sustainable framework for starting your day: bow first, give freely, and let devotion lead the way. If this reflection helps you reset your focus for the new year, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What gift will you bring today?
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. Good morning everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and were able to spend it together with your family in some way, shape, or form. One of the things I did Christmas afternoon was I read again through the Christmas story. And I was struck again by the beauty of the story of the visit of the magi as recorded in Matthew chapter two. These magi were pretty amazing guys. The word magi itself probably means something like an astrologer. They read the stars to see events that were happening. So when they saw the star of the birth of Jesus, they began to follow it. And since the star first appeared on the night of Jesus' birth, these wise men from the East had been traveling for a long time. Many scholars believe that Jesus was between one and two years old when the Magi came to Bethlehem with their gifts. Tradition tells us that there were three of them. There could have been three. There could have been ten, there could have been fifteen, there could have been twenty. We don't know. All we know is that there were magi who came from the east, and they brought with them three different gifts. This key moment is recorded in Matthew chapter two, verse eleven. On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and they worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. And that's the part that really struck me. They came to worship King Jesus and to bring him gifts. And I thought, that is amazing. And as I thought about that, it challenged me. I began to wonder when was the last time that I sought Jesus out for the sole purpose of just worshiping him? Not asking him for anything, but just worshiping him. When was the last time I I prayed and my prayer was, Lord, what can I give you today? What what what can I do for you today? And not asked him for anything for myself. And I realized that most of the time in my life, and I believe in most of the time of many of our lives, we go to Jesus far more with what we want him to do for us than what we can do for him. And these magi came bringing gifts and for worship. And when they had brought the gifts and they worshiped, then they left. They did not expect anything back in return. As we look at coming into this new year, as we look at moving ahead, we step into a new year that's gonna have its own problems, it's gonna have its own challenges. Families will change next year. There will be the addition to families, and there will be the loss in families. We will go through both of those things. So, what is the most important thing that we can and should do as we look at what's going to take place next year? I think we need the heart of those magi that just says, Lord, I want to worship you. I want to see what I can give you. God will meet our needs as they come, He will be there for us. He has promised that He will be there for us. He's always promised that He's gonna love us, He's always gonna forgive us, He's always gonna be right there by our side. Those promises of God are real and they are there. God's commitment to us is a given. But what about our commitment to Him? How committed are we to seek Him out and to worship Him and to bring and to offer Him gifts of our lives in obedience? How committed are we to selflessly worship Jesus Christ? But can we make a decision at the end of this year? Lord, I choose to be a better worshiper of you next year. I truly want to worship you with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind. I want to give you everything that I am and let you work in me as you want to, and I want to worship you as my God and as my king and as my savior, and I want to keep that as a priority in my life. Choose to be worshipers. Choose to give him the honor and the glory that he deserves. Let's learn a lesson from those wise guys, those magi of over two thousand years ago, whose only purpose it was to bring worship and gifts to this new king. Have a great day, my friends. We'll talk again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.
