Music Monday - The Love of God

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Roman 8:31-39

Mercy Me singing "The Love of God"

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

HE IS RISEN!

Newsong's "Arise My Love"

Thoughts on the Bible Conference

Last week, we had our Spring Bible Conference at Grace Church. The guest speaker, Dr. Dennis Johnson, spoke on the Christ-centeredness of Scripture. He laid the foundation for the Bible Conference speaking from Luke 24 where Jesus, after his resurrection and on the road to Emmaus, showed the two disciples how all of Scripture pointed to himself.

The conference’s topic was a good reminder that ALL of Scripture points to Christ. I think sometimes that we view the Old Testament as good history books filled with examples for us. There are a few prophecies that are about Christ directly and we see these mainly because they are pointed out to us in the New Testament. We are told that the Temple and the sacrificial laws are shadows of and find their fulfillment in Christ. But what about those passages that don’t seem to have any connection to Christ? How do we see Christ in these verses?

One evening, we were having our family prayer time and were reading in 1 Kings 13. In this story, a nameless man of God confronts Jeroboam’s sin of idolatry. His message delivered, the man of God departs. An old prophet found out about the man of God, saddled up his donkey, and went to find the man and invite him to dinner. Pretty hospitable guy, right? Well, apparently the man of God had been told by God not to “eat bread nor drink water there” (v.17). The old prophet then lies to the man of God saying something like “Hey, what do you know? I’m a prophet too! And guess what? God told me to tell you it’s okay for you to come to my house” (v.18 – very loosely paraphrased). The man of God gives in, goes home with the old, lying, hospitable prophet, and has lunch. The old prophet then gives him a real message from God – “Because you disobeyed, you’re going to die.” Sure enough, as the man of God is riding home, a lion comes along and kills him. After we read this, Sarah asked, “So how do we see Christ in this passage?” I had no clue! But that’s when the Bible Conference’s next service helped tremendously.

Dr. Johnson’s lesson the very next morning was on recognizing Christ’s role as prophet, priest and king. “Ask every text of Scripture: ‘What aspect of Christ’s work as mediator comes into the spotlight in this passage?’
• His revealing role as prophet, enabling us to know the Father and hear his Word?
• His ruling role as king, acting with wisdom, courage and justice to assert God’s reign in the world?
• His reconciling, relationship-restoring role as priest, who gave himself for us and ever lives to intercede for us before the Father…and to bring us into that Holy Place?”

Further, when we read a passage and ask these questions, we can look for an example of either what Christ is or what Christ is not. Armed with this, I went back to the 1 Kings passage to see how Christ can be seen. What I found was awesome, to say the least.

Since the passage was already talking about a person as prophet, I thought I’d start with that since it seemed the most obvious. How was Christ’s role as prophet being spotlighted? The man of God already had God’s word revealed to him. He knew the law and knew what he was supposed to do. But the old prophet came along and said something completely different, in essence doing away with and contradicting God’s Word. This is directly opposite of what Christ said he does in Matt.5:17 – “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” On the one hand, you’ve got a prophet that attempts to change what God has said. He is the antithesis of Christ. The result is that the law is broken and death is brought about. On the other hand, you’ve got a Prophet (Christ) that doesn’t change anything, but rather brings God’s word to fulfillment. The result is the law is fulfilled and life is given!

This discovery turned a rather odd story into one where Christ’s role as Prophet can be seen and where we get an Old Testament glimpse of a New Testament truth. It definitely has me eager to “search the Scriptures” for more of such glimpses.

Music Monday - For the Glory of Your Name

This an artist I hadn't heard before. Here is Michelle Tumes singing "For the Glory of Your Name."

Free Audiobook for April

From ChristianAudio.com

The free audiobook download for April, So Beautiful: God's Divine Design for Life and the Church is something of a first for christianaudio. The audiobook version is actually being released before the print book is even available! This brand new book from author and theologian Len Sweet (The Gospel According to Starbucks) is a fresh look at God's church.

What is commonly known as DNA today was called "...so pretty!" when it was discovered years ago, and over the course of his ministry, author Leonard Sweet has discovered that this divine design also informs God's blueprint for the church. In this seminal work, he shares the woven strands that form the church: missional, relational, and incarnational. Sweet declares that this secret is So Beautiful!

Using the poignant life of John Newton as a touchstone, Sweet calls for the re-union of these three essential, complementary strands of the Christian life. Far from a novel idea, Sweet shows how this structure is God's original intent and shares the simply beautiful design for His church.

Cat's in the Cradle

Carlos has this game that he likes to play. I use the word “game” loosely since most of the time he plays it after he has gotten in trouble over something. After being corrected on something, he’ll ask me if I had to do this or that when I was a little boy. For example, he might be complaining about the fact that bed time is fast approaching and ask, “Papi, did you have to go to bed at 8:00 when you were little?” Or upon seeing some undesirable food items on his plate, he’ll ask, “Papi, did you have to eat all your food when you were little?” And so on.

The underlying cause behind the question is to compare his state in life to mine and see if they match up or to see if there is any perceived unfairness. And to be honest, it got to be very annoying and I would end up dismissing his question by answering “It doesn’t matter what I got to do.”

The more I thought about this though, the more I realized that what I got to do when I was little did in fact matter. My parents did make me eat all my food (even the detested broccoli!); I did have a set bed time; I did have chores and schoolwork, etc. And I had all these things because my parents knew something I didn’t know. Well, a lot of somethings, actually. They knew that the values they taught me as a child would be the same values I would have as an adult and the same values I would teach my children. They taught me not to be wasteful (“Don’t take more than you can eat”), to be grateful even for the unpleasant things (“Yes, you need to eat the broccoli”), and to be responsible (“Have you done your chores?”), among many things. They also taught me that as my parents, they had a God-given responsibility for and authority over me. Sometimes they gave explanations for directions they gave, sometimes they didn’t. But my responsibility as their child was to honor and obey them, even when I didn’t understand, agree or like it.

Now, when Carlos asks me what my life was like as a little boy, I try to tell him that yes, my parents made me do this too. And I tell him that I’m glad they did.

Beware the Idles of March

After February’s grand total of 12 blog entries, March has been an incredibly slow (read: lazy) month for blogging. Not counting this blog about not blogging, I’ve only had three postings this month. Coincidentally, last March I only had three as well. Course, then I had a good excuse what with Ben’s grand debut and all. Wow, I can’t believe he is 1 already!! Where does time go?! Anyway, my policy behind blogging is that it should be fun & interesting. That means if I don’t feel like blogging, well…then I don’t.

But I’ve not been completely lazy this month. I’m working on recording an abridged version of Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper” for the kids to listen to when we go to Arkansas for our vacation. I’m also reading a book in order to write a review for Thomas Nelson. I’m still working on Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” but haven’t made much headway on that this month. We’ve also had our Spring Bible Conference this weekend (more on that later). I also managed to get our rather old tiller started and tilled our little garden area so Sarah can plant her veggies.

So here’s to a more productive blog in April. I’ll leave you with a picture of my very entertaining company who is sitting beside me. (Well, he was 10 seconds ago, now he’s crawled off in search of his next great adventure.)

10 years ago today!

Today is a special day. 10 years ago, I was 21, a senior in college, and a couple months away from finally graduating. And here I was as nervous as a high school freshman asking a classmate of mine out on a date. Well, a date as far as life at this particular college was concerned, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s back up a little.

For the first couple years of college life, I had pursued a relationship with another young lady. I had not based the relationship on God at all, but rather what I thought I wanted. In the summer of 1998, a series of events showed me that I was in no way ready for the responsibility and maturity needed for a serious relationship. At first, I didn’t want to admit this, my pride insisting that I was ready and all God had to do was put his seal of approval on my plans! As most, if not all of us have learned (and learn…and learn…and learn…), God doesn’t quite work that way. Finally, I confessed this as sin and resolved myself to a life of bachelorhood. That was towards the end of the fall semester, 1998.

When I started my last semester in the spring of 1999, God had given me two great and Godly floor leaders along with guys in my prayer group who truly wanted to live for God and praise Him. I had a good job and a great class schedule. I had no idea what I was going to do after graduation, but somehow I wasn’t really worried about it.

Then I went to class. Or two classes in particular, actually.

Little did I know that my world was about to be shook (shaken?) up by the classmate sitting to my right in one class and behind me in another. Her name was Sarah. Now, this wasn’t like some romantic movies you might see where the girl comes on the scene with music playing, angels singing, hair blowing in the wind (this was inside, after all!), and the guy’s eyes popping out of his head. No, actually, the closest thing to that was a flying sheep. Unfortunately, I was probably a bad influence on Sarah in this class because I had discovered a hilarious program on my computer that made a little sheep come up and do all kinds of cute little tricks – like fly through the air and land in a bathtub. I know, corny. But hey, when you don’t have angels singing, I guess a flying sheep is the next best thing.

At first, I simply wanted to be friendly. Nothing more. After all, I was now a confirmed bachelor for life, remember? But the more I talked to Sarah and got to know her, the more I wanted to know her more. In a word, she was fascinating! I’m not sure when it happened and I don’t claim to have the gift of prophecy, but at some point during that semester, God seemed to be telling me that Sarah was the person whom I was going to marry. But get this – I actually and literally argued about that with God! “But God, I’m a confirmed bachelor, remember?!” And it was as if God poked me in the ribs and said “Are you trying to get me to stamp my approval on your plans again?” Ouch. Oh I wanted to know Sarah more, but I wanted to be sure that it was what God had planned on - not me.

So on March 19, 1999 – 10 years ago today – I very nervously asked Sarah if she would like to go with me to a picnic in the afternoon. To my horror, she said she had already planned to go with some friends. BUT, she added quickly, I could come along if I wanted to! “Hey, that’s better than nothing,” I thought. We enjoyed the picnic together with her friends and then went our separate ways. But that wasn’t enough for me. I had to see her again! I picked up the phone in my dorm and started to dial her room. I think I got about 2 digits out of the 4 entered before hanging up. Trying again, I picked it up, dialed – and then hung up. I think I did this about 3 times before finally getting the courage to actually let it ring and not hang up when she answered. I asked her if she would like to attend the Praise Service at church that evening with me – she said YES! I’m pretty sure I was about 6 inches off the ground when I hung up.

And so began a relationship with the most wonderful woman I have ever known. There were a couple of times where she wasn’t too sure about the whole “us” thing. To me, that was okay because I knew something she didn’t – I was going to marry her! After graduation, we went our separate ways, but God in his sovereignty and in a way only HE could bring about (ask me about that sometime!) provided a way for me to move to Roanoke, win over her mom (who Sarah swears always takes my side :) ), and most importantly, win Sarah’s heart.

I love you Sarah and I’m so glad you said “Yes!” :)

Music Monday - In Christ Alone

This is perhaps one of my most favorite modern hymns.

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

Free Audiobook of the month

From ChristianAudio.com:

Prayer. Fasting. Solitude. Worship. Stewardship. What exactly are the spiritual disciplines and how do they help us grow into disciples of Jesus? How do the spiritual disciplines lead us on the path to Godliness? This classic book answers those questions and prepares us for a journey into the life with God.

With deep thanks to the author, Donald S. Whitney, we are excited to offer Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life as the free audiobook download for the month of March.

Also, special thanks to the publisher for this month's free audiobook download. NavPress, a division of The Navigators, is an organization meant to advance the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom into the nations through spiritual generations of laborers living and disciple among the lost. For the printed version of the book, please visit the NavPress online store.