Learn from the Message
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God, in the beginning. John 1:1-2
Today is going to be a busy day, and today is going to the quietest day I will have for the next ten days. I made sure to get up early enough today, to have serious Abba and me time. I know I need it!
When I woke up this morning I was overwhelmed by the challenges and disappointments that are currently a part of my life. There was a definite threat to my peace and joy. In fact peace and joy are the antithesis of what I was feeling. Gloom, doom and sadness were not the emotions I wanted to take into my visit with my Lord. But my thoughts wanted to stay in the less than faithful, hurt and disappointed area. No! To combat that I did what I do when I’m using my brain. I turned on praise music.
One of my favorite songs reminds me that one event supersedes anything that happened before, happened since or will ever happen in the history of man. In other words, the guy sings about the sacrifice of Jesus. It is a great song! It illustrates what is important as opposed to what is not so much, and does so really well. It was the second song I listened to this morning.
The first one was basically a great Psalm set to music. I know nothing about the singer but I do something about the writer, King David. In the second song the singer and writer are the same person and I know that he used praise music as a stepping stone to a very different kind of career. I may believe, wholeheartedly, the words he is singing but I’m not so sure he does. That brought up a different issue for me.
For just a second that thought, the idea that this young man, who sings so passionately about Jesus, went on to live in a rather questionable lifestyle, gave me pause. I was quickly reminded of another musician who is similar, and then another, and pretty soon the faces of a couple of pastors I know floated into my mind. Stop!
True enough, I know people who sing and preach about God with great eloquence and then live lives that say, “Jesus who?” Worse I know one or two who use their Biblical knowledge as a weapon, turning people away from, instead of toward, the love of God. So, now what?
The Truth is the truth and no one, no singer, songwriter, pastor or pedestrian, nominal Christian, can add to, or deter from, that truth. Continuing to listen I realized there are many singers out there about whom I know nothing. They may be all that they present to the world. The fruit they bear may be ripe and wonderful. Or they may be all talk and no follow through. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.
Go back to the pastors for a second. I have learned so much from a couple of men whose personal choices make me cringe at best. Yet, those men were so intelligent, so well-spoken that they could make the words of the Bible real and relatable. I have walked away from their messages comforted, challenged and convicted, sometimes all on the same day. That is a preacher! That same man may not live what he is preaching but that is between him and God, not him and me or God and me.
In the Old Testament God spoke through a donkey and I think He does that today too. I know my actions aren’t one hundred percent truth and faith. I can only pray that enough of how I live supports my belief. I would advise everyone reading this to take my words, as well as the words of anyone else, to Scripture and verify them. Learn from the message not the messengers.
Today is going to be a busy day, and today is going to the quietest day I will have for the next ten days. I made sure to get up early enough today, to have serious Abba and me time. I know I need it!
When I woke up this morning I was overwhelmed by the challenges and disappointments that are currently a part of my life. There was a definite threat to my peace and joy. In fact peace and joy are the antithesis of what I was feeling. Gloom, doom and sadness were not the emotions I wanted to take into my visit with my Lord. But my thoughts wanted to stay in the less than faithful, hurt and disappointed area. No! To combat that I did what I do when I’m using my brain. I turned on praise music.
One of my favorite songs reminds me that one event supersedes anything that happened before, happened since or will ever happen in the history of man. In other words, the guy sings about the sacrifice of Jesus. It is a great song! It illustrates what is important as opposed to what is not so much, and does so really well. It was the second song I listened to this morning.
The first one was basically a great Psalm set to music. I know nothing about the singer but I do something about the writer, King David. In the second song the singer and writer are the same person and I know that he used praise music as a stepping stone to a very different kind of career. I may believe, wholeheartedly, the words he is singing but I’m not so sure he does. That brought up a different issue for me.
For just a second that thought, the idea that this young man, who sings so passionately about Jesus, went on to live in a rather questionable lifestyle, gave me pause. I was quickly reminded of another musician who is similar, and then another, and pretty soon the faces of a couple of pastors I know floated into my mind. Stop!
True enough, I know people who sing and preach about God with great eloquence and then live lives that say, “Jesus who?” Worse I know one or two who use their Biblical knowledge as a weapon, turning people away from, instead of toward, the love of God. So, now what?
The Truth is the truth and no one, no singer, songwriter, pastor or pedestrian, nominal Christian, can add to, or deter from, that truth. Continuing to listen I realized there are many singers out there about whom I know nothing. They may be all that they present to the world. The fruit they bear may be ripe and wonderful. Or they may be all talk and no follow through. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.
Go back to the pastors for a second. I have learned so much from a couple of men whose personal choices make me cringe at best. Yet, those men were so intelligent, so well-spoken that they could make the words of the Bible real and relatable. I have walked away from their messages comforted, challenged and convicted, sometimes all on the same day. That is a preacher! That same man may not live what he is preaching but that is between him and God, not him and me or God and me.
In the Old Testament God spoke through a donkey and I think He does that today too. I know my actions aren’t one hundred percent truth and faith. I can only pray that enough of how I live supports my belief. I would advise everyone reading this to take my words, as well as the words of anyone else, to Scripture and verify them. Learn from the message not the messengers.
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