It’s that time of year again! We can’t stop it if we try, so we may as well jump on the Christmas preparation train and see where it leads. This week for our Music Monday time we’ll pick up an old familiar hymn. This hymn was first written as a poem and later put into song form about fourteen years later. The poem turned song was intended to help the Christian to understand teh power of the reality of Christmas. It demonstrates one of the core truths of the Christian faith – the incarnation.
It’s pretty easy to give words to Jesus. It’s way to simple to twist the words of the Bible to make them say just about anything we want. Over the past few weeks we’ve touched on just a couple of these statements that Jesus never said but we kind of think he said. The goal of the series was to show that we should be glad Jesus never actually said them! This week we wrapped up the series with the realization that life isn’t fair and that’s probably a good thing!
In my journey through my bookshelves to find something good to read, I tend to find an author and stick with them for a few weeks. Last week we took a look at Follow Me by David Platt and Francis Chan. This week we tackle another David Platt book titled Counter Culture. If I’m being honest, and why wouldn’t I because this is my website, this one was challenging. It was challenging because Platt is calling Christians, and me specifically, to the task of living the faith I claim to possess.
Never been to Jerusalem. Never been to the Jordan River. Never walked through the holy waters of the Bible. But after listening to this song, perhaps I can say that I have experienced something far more powerful than any of these locations could have given me. In church world we call this sweet holy water stuff – forgiveness.
I’ve never walked through a super hot desert without water but I have worked outside on hot summer days when the heat just zaps all of the energy out of me. When I come back inside and drink that tall glass of ice-cold water it’s like new life is breathed back into me.
This week’s Music Monday is a song called Holy Water. The beat is catchy and the words are powerful. Take a few minutes and listen to the words. Listen closely because when we really focus on what’s being said in this song we’ll realize that our lives are a lot like that desert I mentioned earlier. We go through life dry and parched. We try to fill ourselves with drink after drink but all it does is leaves us even more thirsty. It’s kind of like the Bible story of the woman at the well. She kept having to go back and get more water for herself. But Jesus offers her water that will make her never thirst again. This is the water of forgiveness.
When we realize the dry and parched nature of our souls when we keep going back to the well of sin, then receiving this fresh and life-giving water of forgiveness is like the sweetest water we could imagine. Listen. Think. Then receive this water for yourself as you turn and focus on what He is doing in your life.
It’s rare that I’ll post something on a Sunday but I found this quote that really got me thinking. I could have scheduled it to post at a later time but this one just had to be put out there. My normal Sunday morning routine typically involves getting to my office well before anyone else arrives. I read through the Bible verses for that morning, look through my translation notes, drink my coffee, pray, eat a little something. Then if I have a little time to spare I’ll scroll through my social media feeds to clear notifications from the night. This morning was no different. But as I was scrolling through one of my feeds, a quote popped up that got me thinking. How selfish are we?
Some of the very first words recorded in the Bible that Jesus said are Follow Me. Can you imagine hearing those words? Here he is, the man the world has been waiting for is standing right in front of you and he’s calling you to come and follow where he’s going. The excitement must have been riveting! People ended up coming from miles and miles away just to get a glimpse of this man that we’ve come to know as Jesus. And it happened simply because of a pointed phrase – Follow Me.
Growing up I went to church just about every Sunday. I didn’t have an option. My parents even made me acolyte (fun church word for light the candles). The pastor asked me to read the readings when no one else was around to do them. And over and over the message that was taught, often unknowingly, was that the more time we spent with Jesus the better our lives would become. This message has gotten so prevelant that pastors are preaching it and writing books about how to have our best life now with little mention of Jesus anywhere at all!
This week I want you to think about an orchestra. You know the stage and the director and the host of different instrumentalists all playing the same song but in their own unique voices. A symphony is a pretty impressive thing when you really think about it. You can have 40, 60, even 100 or more people all in one place playing the same song but when each of them play their own part alone it doesn’t sound the same. When the clarinet plays by itself, it sure doesn’t sound the same as when it’s in the orchestra setting. But when the clarinet plays its part along with the flutes, trumpets, tubas, trombones, percussion and all the other instruments the sound is powerful, beautiful and amazing.
I still remember the day. I was driving from Cincinnati back to Marysville and I was going down State Route 38 almost to London. When around the curve he came. It was a State Highway Patrol doing his job but man I really didn’t want to see him that day. I was traveling at a slightly elevated rate of speed (very politically correct way of saying I was speeding). And as soon as I saw him I knew it. I felt that feeling we get when we’ve been caught. It’s when the heart jumps into our throat and we just want to vomit. Then it happened, his lights turned on and he did a u-turn right there in the middle of that two lane road. Ugh! I was caught. Remorse set in.
Christians are tricky people. We say we believe in something but so often that thing we believe doesn’t really seem to do much to us. It’s like we’re saying I believe it…kind of but need more time to process it. But that’s not really how this whole Jesus follower thing works. The bible tells us that we’re either hot for him or cold against him but lukewarm just isn’t going to cut it! This week we spend a few minutes looking at what we live for as Christ followers.
