The Power and the Glory

Some thoughts from two conversations with two of my brothers in Christ,
one an accomplished musician, the other a non-performer who loves music.

We read of the "worship wars" over which music is most suited for worship. I
shared with these two my own outlook, as one who made a modest living for a while
as a musician. I came to be convicted of my own failure to focus completely on God
as I presented "special music" during worship service. Indeed, it began to seem as though I, not the God I sought to honor, was being made the object of attention
during these performances. With my lips I was giving praise, honor and glory to the
God who created me and redeemed me, but in my heart something else was occurring.

"What do you think,"I asked my fellow musician. I was not surprised to hear that he
too had experienced conviction over the secret thoughts of his heart during his own musical offerings. He had come to the conclusion, as I did, that individual performance during worship was not appropriate for him.

"What do you think," I asked my non-musician friend. Having grown up with bluegrass and southern gospel in the church, he found such music joyful and uplifting and conducive, in his experience, to worship. "I like special music," he told me.

The Reformed congregation where I attend church has adopted the view that every aspect of the worship service should be directed toward God alone (vertical worship) and that any "blessing" received by the worshiper should stem from having worshiped "in spirit and in truth." In other words: no special music.

So what's the big deal? Here's what I think: music is a gift from God to humanity. There is a power in music. It heals, it lifts up, it calms the savage breast. Music can make you want to dance. It can make you want to cry. It has the power to transport the listener to a specific place and time, to evoke strong memories. Have you ever attended a live musical performance? Then you can attest to music's power to move the hearer.

Having stood on a stage before an audience, I can testify to the fact that some of music's power attaches to the performer. I don't even have to be all that talented. I just have to know how to "work the crowd." Believe me, it's an almost godlike feeling to be able to move people with the skill of a performance. What a rush! There's no wonder that old, worn-out rockers return to the road time and again for a taste of the adulation. "We love the music," they say. Right.

Being fallen, we turn God's gift of music to our own ends. The music that lifts the believer's heart up to God can be used to the personal gratification of the performer. Music accompanied the child sacrifices that the Canaanites made to Molech. The Germans nearly conquered the world to the beat of several really snappy marching tunes. Rick Warren requires 72 beats per minute, the rate of the human heart, for worship music in his church.

Music is powerful stuff. I will sing with the saints in heaven. But for now, I'll be content to sing the congregational hymns. I won't attempt to bind anyone's conscience here but my own. Power corrupts, as Lord Acton once said, and I'm corrupt enough not to need any more.

Memory Lapse and Fading Glory

I had an epiphany. It was a powerful experience.

I had accepted a job that I believed would be a great opportunity. A year out of college, still
working part-time and debt mounting around me, I thought, "My prayers are being answered. God is manifesting his glory and provenance in my life.!"

Ten days ago today, He brought me up short in a way that was clear and unmistakable. It was a moment in my Christian walk that shone like the sun bursting suddenly through heavy clouds.

Today, thinking back on it, the glory has faded somewhat and doubts have begun to creep in as to whether God truly spoke to me, or I acted of my own volition in turning down that job.

We are so prone to self-deception. The reason I will continue to believe God spoke explicitly to me through a daily devotion is because this whole experience, the glory of seeing Him acting to divert me from a dangerous path, and the subsequent fading of that into bewilderment and doubt, leads me to a much deeper lesson.

We read of the generation God brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He brought them through the Red Sea, and miraculously fed them in the desert, causing clear sparkling water gush from rocks, We read of these things and we read how they doubted and grumbled and rebelled and we say, "What was wrong with these people? They witnessed all these marvellous things and yet they sinned the sin of disbelief!" How could this be?

But then I think of this wonderful manifestation of God's loving care in my own life and the hundreds of small, perhaps even unnoticed, ways he demonstrates his love to me. Then I think of how short my memory is, how much I take for granted, how self-centered I can be and I understand.

We are saved by God's grace and that alone, and it is only through that grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit that we can even remember to be grateful. How much more, O LORD, do we need your grace to see your glory revealed and to treasure it in our hearts.

To remember.

Why Can't We Just All Get Along?

Are the spiritual and the intellectual aspects of faith mutually exclusive? Surely they are two
sides of the same coin. We are saved by the power of the Holy Spirit. Right? We are also called upon, as saved sinners, to work out our salvation "with fear and trembling."

To "work a thing out" means to think about it; to meditate on it. We read about the giants of
the Christian faith who preceded us and find that they waged titanic struggles within their hearts. If you gaze into the pure light of the Gospel, how can you not be overwhelmed with the
sense of your own unworthiness?

But the call to holiness is not a call to Pharisaism. By the psalmist's instruction to "serve the Lord
with gladness," we understand that ours is to be a joyful holiness. Jesus said "ye are the light of the world." Light and warmth go together.

These are things of the Spirit, imparted by Him that we might be witnesses. But Scripture also says that the things of God are "spiritually discerned." Discernment. Not judgement. Do you see the difference? We are commanded to exercise the one. God reserves the other to himself.

In observing, pointing out and remarking upon what has been shown (again and again) to be error, I am to be charitable. We are commanded, after all, my fellow Christians, to love one another. We are to be no less firm, however, in speaking against errant teaching; teaching that runs counter to the whole counsel of the Word of God.

"You are in error because you do not know scripture." These words were spoken by our Lord and Saviour. Paul uses the first chapter of his letter to the Galatians to pronounce anathema on
those who would teach that sinful man can be saved by ANY effort of his own. This heresy, propagated in Galatia by the so-called Judaizers, has taken many forms and had many names throughout the Church Age.

I said "heresy." A different gospel. Another type of salvation. Jesus said, "No one can come to the Father but through me." Do we dare to naysay the Master's words? Is this statement so repugnant as to require all sorts of mental gymnastics to put a different spin on it? Why is that, do you suppose? Pay careful attention to not just the answer, but the thought process used to arrive at that answer. Bear these words in mind as you meditate: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?"

I Kicked the Habit

Addiction is a nasty-sounding word. It is a condition we observe in others with varying feelings of horror, pity, and contempt.



It's not a word we would apply to ourselves. "I can control myself," we say, or "I'm much too strong for that."



So, am I? Are you?



One is addicted when one "has allowed something to gain a strong, habitual and enduring hold on action ,inclination or involuntary tendency." That's straight out of Webster's Dictionary.



Hmm.



Here's another cool word: Insiduous: designed to trap; full of wiles; causing harm by slow, stealthy, usually imperceptible means.



The thing I'm trying to say is: a habit doesn't have to have horrifically bad effects to be labeled an addiction. It just needs to be addicting.



Take games, for instance. They come in all sizes and forms on the internet, and they're free (unless you desire the same spectacular success your neighbor is having).

So where's the harm, huh?



I've been addicted to 'Fog of War' for the past month, feverishly building up cities and armies so I can pillage my neighbor. I can see how Hitler got hooked on the real thing. Not that I would EVER do the things he did in real life, mind you.



So where's the harm?



My wife complained mildly at one point, then said, "At least you're not running the streets; you're right in the next room."



So where's the harm?



Was I given this time (precious time) to squander in such a mindless fashion? Why do you suppose I was irritable when I couldn't have access to the computer? Was that uneasiness I felt actually resentment at my time being occupied by my part-time job? Or by MY Family?!?



One of the keys to changing an undesirable behaviour (after earnest prayer) is to remove all influences toward that behaviour from your life.



So this morning, I pulled up my 'favorites' list, selected the bookmark for the wargame, right-clicked it and pressed 'delete.'



"Are you sure you want to permanently delete this record?"

Yes. Please.

Sunday, 8:00 A.M.

It is very quiet in this neighborhood on this mild overcast Sunday morning. Not even the usual buzz of traffic from East Main St., a block away.

I step outside to check the temperature, and notice a squirrel perched on a stump in my next-door neighbor's yard. He working on a cluster of pecans, still in their protective green hull.

As I ease closer to watch him, a movement across the street catches my eye. Our tomcat, Vicious (as in Sid), emerges from the beanfield behind the house there. He moves gracefully, then halts at the edge of the street as he spots the squirrel.

The squirrel, who has been warily observing me, spots Vicious at the same time as the cat begins his dash forward. Dropping his pecans, he scrambles toward my back yard and with a single bound, mountd the privacy fence.

Wolfgang, our husky-wolf mix, leaps at the squirrel running nimbly along the fence, to the neighbor's shed, and to a low hanging limb.

It's Sunday morning. God is in His heaven, and my animals are on patrol.

Who Do You Think I Am?

Something that came up during our study of Church History last night: we were looking at the second century Arrian controversy. Arrius denied the divinity of Christ. This heresy very nearly became the prevailing doctrine of the Church.

The commentator (we use a dvd), John Gerstner, made the statement that "most Christians" today don't believe that Jesus is God.

I was floored. I'm sure that some professing Christians have hazy notions about the deity of Christ, but "most?"

First, this seems an impossible statement. Gerstner gave no basis for it and though I know there are lots of liberals in the church, this seems to me to be a core belief.

Which brings me to my second point, which is more in the form of a question: Can a person truly be a Christian without believing that Jesus is divine?

It troubles me that Christianity may have come to this. The Southern Baptists fought a long bitter struggle to regain control of the teaching in their seminaries. I left a denomination because it had strayed from these essential truths.

If Jesus is not divine, do we even have a religion? What do you think?

What I Learned Last Night

Deon finished his sermon series on the book of Ruth last night. Across the board, this may be one of the most loved books of the Bible. Even that famous skeptic, Ben Franklin, admired it. You have probably read it numerous times, as I have.

Deon brought out two wonderful points about Ruth that I hadn't considered.

The first point is: God brings order out of chaos. To compare the beginning of the story (a time of famine and disorder) to the end (a kinsman-redeemer has been born and a kingly line established) illustrates this wonderfully, and in a section of scripture where I hadn't noticed it before.

The second point: Our lives have significance in God's plan. The geneology at the end of Ruth spans centuries and there, 3/4 of the way down the list, we read "Boaz, the father of Obed." The characters in this story occupied a mere blink in the eye of time. Yet, the actions of these folks, guided by the hand of God, have had eternal significance. Who knows the effects, down the years, of the seemingly most mundane tasks you and I perform today?

We serve an awesome and sovereign God.