This week we take on another one of those old favorites for our Music Monday. Sung in churches around the world is the hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The focus of our song this week is to help us see the waiting that takes place inside all of us as Christmas draws ever closer.
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Forgotten God is written by Francis Chan and although I’ve had this book on my shelf for years I just made time to finish it. And I don’t know why I waited so long! Chan has a way of just being straight about his faith. He’s not trying to make you believe something you don’t. He’s not trying to win people to Jesus with this book. As a matter of fact, if you’re not a Jesus follower, then I probably wouldn’t pick this one up as your first connection to the church world!
Continue readingThis year as we journey toward Christmas we are looking at Christmas from different angles. Our theme is It’s all about the presence. Yes I know. It’s a fun play on words. But it should get us thinking a bit. We live in a world that thinks Christmas is all about the presents when in actuality they’re just a few letters off! So if Christmas is all about the presence, can we have Christmas without all of the normal stuff?
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In the start of the Gospel of John, we read a peculiar little account. But before we dig into the meaning of the first few verses of this book, let’s take a quick glance at why this book exists in the first place. In the New Testament of the Bible there are four letters known as Gospels. These four books account for the life of Jesus from different perspectives. They certainly say the same thing just with different thrusts. Matthew is writing to Jewish people who were expecting a king so he writes mostly about what Jesus said. Mark is writing to Roman people who saw Jesus do some pretty amazing things, so he’ll focus on what Jesus did. Luke writes to a guy named Theophilus, and he’ll spend his account focusing on what Jesus felt. And not to be left out, John writes to anyone and everyone, and he’ll focus on who Jesus was.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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?
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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.
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