Check out this video. When I first heard music like this in the Church I was stunned. Gone were the days of using our Hymnals with a piano and organ. This was radical stuff. Of course today we sing some really rockin' worship music that makes this sound like your Grandparents music but it really touched me as I began my journey with Christ. Enjoy!
Friday, June 8, 2007
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Newsboys - He Reigns
This is one of my all time favorite songs. I listened to it a lot as I served the Lord in Ghana. Listen to the words, recognize that God Reigns on ALL the Earth and be blessed!
Praise
Psalm 117
Praise the Lord all you nations; extol him, all you
peoples.
For Great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of
the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord.
I’ve been thinking a lot about praise. Do I praise my kids enough, do I praise my coworkers enough, and do I praise my spouse enough? More importantly do I praise God enough? I know the answer…it’s a rhetorical question.
There are over 130 instances in the Bible where praise is mentioned. Praise is defined as “to express a favorable judgment of”; to glorify especially by the attribution of perfections; expression of approval, commendation or admiration.”
Scripture commands us to praise God with our lips and our actions, hmmm. When I visited Ghana I noticed a huge difference between Christians there and here in America. In Ghana they recognized their dependence on God. In America we depend on ourselves, our government, our economy and everyone but God. In Ghana it was common place to hear someone say “Praise God” or “Praise the Lord” or “Thank you Jesus” when they received something of worth. Their first response was to praise God, not the deliverer of the thing of worth but the GIVER of the thing of worth. Because they depend on God they praise him.
So maybe the question is, do I depend on God, have I totally given everything to Him, am I totally sold out for Him and if so won’t the result of that be praise? I want to Praise God more. Scripture commands it.
Praise God for my salvation! Praise God for my family! Praise God for my employers! Praise God for my Church! Praise God for the men and women that give their lives toward full time low pay ministry! Praise God for the men, women and children that have heard the voice of God and have left everything in obedience to serve Him on the mission field! Praise God for people that put reaching people for Christ ahead of their financial gain! Praise God for forgiving me every time I mess up (and it’s frequent)! Praise God because He is God!
I plan to praise God more, not just here on my blog but every where to everyone.
Lord you are my all-in-all, my purpose for existing, my hope for eternity. You are perfect, loving, strong, resolute and faithful. I will praise you to the nations; I will extol you in my life.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Boasting
The Word is sufficient and all my thoughts are worthless. What makes you proud? Your family, job, spouse, house, the Braves, the Falcons, your college sports teams? What are you proud of? Did you know that everyone who spends time with you can tell? If you are with someone long enough you’ll know what they are proud of because at some point they’ll boast about it. I do, you do, we all do. So what do you boast about? You should only be boasting of one thing.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 - "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong
man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who
boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord,
who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I
delight," declares the Lord.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Tragedy
A couple of weeks ago America experienced an “unimaginable” tragedy. One single person shot and murdered 32 innocent people. America was abhorred. You couldn’t escape the hours and hours of news coverage of this terrible occurrence on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
But this isn’t the tragedy I want you to know about. The tragedy in my humble opinion is that America reacted this way when only 32 people were killed. It isn’t my intent to belittle the loss of 32 people. It saddens me to be sure but relatively speaking it was a small number compared with the rest of the world. All over the world in any given day hundreds if not thousands of people die in the most brutal and senseless ways. Uganda, Sudan, Iraq and Darfur are the places we “know” that it exists. In these places men, women and children (not just teens and young adults but small children) are slaughtered in the most horrific of ways, sometimes tortured. Where is America’s day long media attention to these atrocities?
The tragedy is that our news media devoted itself to covering “the story” for 32 people while barely giving a five second or less blip on the screen about the number of lives being lost in the same senseless way all around the world. The tragedy is that this appears to say to the world “we’re better than everyone else”. It appears that we deserve more attention when something of this magnitude happens to us. Check out the following videos but be warned...some of it is graphic and you will be touched!
But this isn’t the tragedy I want you to know about. The tragedy in my humble opinion is that America reacted this way when only 32 people were killed. It isn’t my intent to belittle the loss of 32 people. It saddens me to be sure but relatively speaking it was a small number compared with the rest of the world. All over the world in any given day hundreds if not thousands of people die in the most brutal and senseless ways. Uganda, Sudan, Iraq and Darfur are the places we “know” that it exists. In these places men, women and children (not just teens and young adults but small children) are slaughtered in the most horrific of ways, sometimes tortured. Where is America’s day long media attention to these atrocities?
The tragedy is that our news media devoted itself to covering “the story” for 32 people while barely giving a five second or less blip on the screen about the number of lives being lost in the same senseless way all around the world. The tragedy is that this appears to say to the world “we’re better than everyone else”. It appears that we deserve more attention when something of this magnitude happens to us. Check out the following videos but be warned...some of it is graphic and you will be touched!
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Joy
Do you ever feel bummed out? I do from time to time. I’ve often wondered why. I’ve been reading the book of Romans in my quiet time recently and camped out this morning in chapter 5. I may be reading chapter 5 for a while. It is so rich with truth and theology and joy!
As I pondered my current feelings I was led to a passage in Mark where Jesus is teaching the Disciples about the stages of faith. He teaches them the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:3-9). In verses 4:13-20 he explains the parable to them. For many weeks I’ve felt like the “seed that fell among thorns” in that I have allowed the worries of life, deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things to come in and choke out my faith leaving me unfruitful. I’ve been so preoccupied with my perceived “problems” that I’ve lost sight of what should bring me joy.
Let that sink in a moment. We should rejoice, be full of joy because of wealth, health, social status, our great family’s, our spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, new car, new house, retirement portfolio, our church, our pastor, our nation, our customers, our successes, the sports team we cheer for, our children’s extracurricular activity or our education level. NO! That is not what brings us joy or should make us rejoice! We have joy in the hope of the glory of God. Only God’s glory is everlasting. Only God’s glory will cause us to live forever. Only God’s glory is worthy of our attention and our hope. Not the other things. The other things are what Christ taught will choke out our witness of His glory and make us unfruitful.
Well, I know what I need to let go of and cling to so that I’m a fruitful follower of Christ. How about you? What’s causing you to feel bummed out that you need to let go of and let God deal with?
As I pondered my current feelings I was led to a passage in Mark where Jesus is teaching the Disciples about the stages of faith. He teaches them the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:3-9). In verses 4:13-20 he explains the parable to them. For many weeks I’ve felt like the “seed that fell among thorns” in that I have allowed the worries of life, deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things to come in and choke out my faith leaving me unfruitful. I’ve been so preoccupied with my perceived “problems” that I’ve lost sight of what should bring me joy.
Romans 5:2-3 says …and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not
only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
Let that sink in a moment. We should rejoice, be full of joy because of wealth, health, social status, our great family’s, our spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, new car, new house, retirement portfolio, our church, our pastor, our nation, our customers, our successes, the sports team we cheer for, our children’s extracurricular activity or our education level. NO! That is not what brings us joy or should make us rejoice! We have joy in the hope of the glory of God. Only God’s glory is everlasting. Only God’s glory will cause us to live forever. Only God’s glory is worthy of our attention and our hope. Not the other things. The other things are what Christ taught will choke out our witness of His glory and make us unfruitful.
Well, I know what I need to let go of and cling to so that I’m a fruitful follower of Christ. How about you? What’s causing you to feel bummed out that you need to let go of and let God deal with?
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Compassion
I’ve been preparing for our small group study. We will be studying Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The whole letter speaks to me at various levels but Colossians 3:12 really snagged me.
I could write a lengthy summary of this verse but I don’t want to lose you. The thing that really spoke to me is “compassion” and this idea of “clothing yourself”. What does it mean? Well, clothe is a verb which means it requires action. Webster defines clothe as “to cover with” or “to provide with”. Paul is saying to us, cover yourself with compassion. Just as you would dress yourself you are to take action and be compassionate. It is something you do, not something you are.
So what then is compassion?
And there is the problem. It’s the doing! As believers we have received the greatest gift of all; grace.
We are saved by faith alone but it is not a faith that is alone. Faith leads to deeds (works). Compassion isn’t what we feel, it’s what we do. Believer, who will you show compassion today? I implore you to do something with your faith. Don’t keep it to yourself. That’s called greed. We all need to break out of our worldly cocoon and act.
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves
with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
I could write a lengthy summary of this verse but I don’t want to lose you. The thing that really spoke to me is “compassion” and this idea of “clothing yourself”. What does it mean? Well, clothe is a verb which means it requires action. Webster defines clothe as “to cover with” or “to provide with”. Paul is saying to us, cover yourself with compassion. Just as you would dress yourself you are to take action and be compassionate. It is something you do, not something you are.
So what then is compassion?
Webster defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distressWow, that means we don’t just sit around and feel sorry for the unsaved, for the poor, for widows, for orphans or for any other ungodly injustice. We do something about it.
together with a desire to alleviate it”.
And there is the problem. It’s the doing! As believers we have received the greatest gift of all; grace.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says “For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith
– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no
one can boast”. But James 2:19 & 20 points out “…Show me your faith
without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do…You foolish man, do you
want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?”
We are saved by faith alone but it is not a faith that is alone. Faith leads to deeds (works). Compassion isn’t what we feel, it’s what we do. Believer, who will you show compassion today? I implore you to do something with your faith. Don’t keep it to yourself. That’s called greed. We all need to break out of our worldly cocoon and act.
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