Bible

Fall On Your Knees

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Tonight is a post from a sort of guest blogger. Basically, I saw something in a post that I knew needed to be shared and copied and pasted. It’s from three years ago and it spoke to my heart, so I hope it will speak to yours:

The words ‘the weary world rejoices’ have been on a constant replay in my mind today. I finally stopped long enough to figure out what song it comes from … ‘O Holy Night’. It’s not necessarily one of my most favorite Christmas songs to sing simply because as an alto I don’t prefer the key it’s often played in. I try to avoid making my vocal cords bleed from trying to sing notes I can’t hit! Nevertheless, I love hearing the song sung by sopranos and tenors. 😊

Once I remembered where the lyrics came from, I thought about the first words of the chorus … ‘fall on your knees’ … I’ve always interpreted those words to mean we should bow in reverence and awe to the Lord. I believe that’s what the author meant but I was struck by another thought. What if ‘fall on your knees’ is also an invitation for the weary soul to rest?

All is well. Our Salvation has come in the form of a baby. He is the One who will restore what has been broken. He is the only One who can offer “a thrill of hope” in a world full of “sin and error pining”. We no longer must strive to make things right. He has come to make all things new. We can fall on our knees in rest, worship, and restful worship.

Only then from that place of restful worship, will we be able to “hear the angels sing”. We will live from a place of Gospel-bought peace and live out His ‘law of love’. As Ann Voskamp says, ‘Peace is not the absence of problems, but the presence of God.’ Through His presence and peace, we can break the bondages we have been living in and join with fellow believers to “praise His holy name”.

Whether you are in a place of deep pain, all-encompassing grief, soul-weariness, or great joy, I am praying you can find the time to receive His invitation to rest, worship, and “praise His holy name”.

‘Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light’. Matthew 11:28-30

Just a thought for this Tuesday in December” (Melody Amason).

Check this version out of “O Holy Night (Hear the Gospel Story)”. I love what they did with the other two verses and choruses. It’s incredible!

(Also from her post).

What Rocking Chair is This?

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I had a bit of a surreal, random moment earlier today. I was at one of my favorite places in Nashville, the Rabbit Room. I was sitting in a rocking chair on the wraparound porch, basking in the blazing sun on a wintry day.

Suddenly, I heard a sound as if it were coming from a distance. It took me a while to place the melody — Greensleeves, or as it is more commonly known, What Child is This. Whatever it was sounded like either a trumpet playing low or a trombone playing high. I sat there and let the words fill my mind as the music played:

“What Child is this who, laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While the good shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud
The Babe, the Son of Mary

So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh
Come peasant, king to own Him
The King of kings salvation brings
Let loving hearts enthrone Him

This, this is Christ the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud
The Babe, the Son of Mary

Raise, oh raise, the song on high
His mother sings her lullaby
Joy, oh joy, for Christ is born
The Babe, the Son of Mary

What Child is this
What Child is this (what Child is this)

This, this is Christ the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud
The Babe, the Son of Mary” (William Chatterton Dix).

Advent needs to be a time of reflection rather than a time of rushing around. I get that people are busy, but if there’s no margin for marveling at the mystery of the incarnation, then we’re too busy. We’ve let too many unimportant things get in the way of the main thing.

So let us come and adore the Christ child this Advent season in the midst of all the buying and wrapping and decorating and baking. Let us remember He’s why we’re celebrating.

Christian Celebrity

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“Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life. God’s purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

I heard something on a podcast that’s been living in my head rent-free ever since. Basically, we weren’t made to be famous. It’s not something that most of us can handle well. To put people on a pedestal because of the ability to sing or act or preach is contrary to what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about.

One thing we do is immediately upon finding out someone believes in Jesus and can sing is to put them in front of a lot of people without any kind of discipleship or even finding out what they actually believe. The result is a whole myriad of trainwrecks of people who derailed morally or have deconstructed to the point where they no longer believe anything or have watered down the faith to the point that it’s basically meaningless.

We weren’t called to be famous. We were called to be faithful. Maybe what we need are less singers and actors and dancers and people on a stage with a spotlight and more people behind the scenes serving and washing feet. We need less Christian celebrities and more servants.

Hopefully, this is not a bashing session. I hope it’s to get us to the point where we don’t seek to elevate people to the place that only God deserves and in the process put tremendous pressure on them to somehow be all things to all people and be perfect instead of allowing them to be human.

I still remember one year how I commented one year that so many celebrities were passing away. One friend wisely commented that every day a hero passes and very few people know about it. The real heroes are the ones who often go unnoticed and unacclaimed because they’re not seeking attention but to make the world better. So many are doing the faithful work of faith in secret and are themselves unaware of the eternal impact they’ve made.

I love that people get a chance to represent Jesus well in front of a camera or a crowd, but better yet is a live of sacrifice that that leads to the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Pure in Heart

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“Who is pure in heart? Only those who have completely given their hearts to Jesus, so that he alone rules in them. Only those who do not stain their hearts with their own evil, but also not with their own good. A pure heart is the simple heart of a child, who does not know about good and evil, the heart of Adam before the fall, the heart in which the will of Jesus rules instead of one’s own conscience.… A pure heart is pure of good and evil; it belongs entirely and undivided to Christ; it looks only to him, who goes on ahead. Those alone will see God who in this life have looked only to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Their hearts are free of defiling images; they are not pulled back and forth by the various wishes and intentions of their own. Their hearts are fully absorbed in seeing God. They will see God whose hearts mirror the image of Jesus Christ” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

I read one time that purity of heart is to will one thing. There is no divide between my will and God’s will or what I want versus what God wants for me. True purity of heart means living surrendered to the point where God’s will is my will and God’s desire for me is my desire.

That’s not something I think we completely achieve in this life, but as we have this Christ life continually formed inside of us, we get closer to being pure in heart. Also, maybe being pure in heart is to grow so transparent that people who look at us see less and less of us and eventually only Christ in us.

“God blesses those whose hearts are pure,
    for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8, NLT).

Worship

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That’s worship. It’s an every day event.

I know these days there’s an entire industry built around worship and worship music. So many people view worship as an event at a specific location with certain emotions. If you don’t have all three, you don’t have worship, according to these people.

But true worship isn’t an event. It’s not just singing on Sunday at a church building. It’s living in a way that declares the ultimate worth of God to everyone watching. And it expresses itself in everything you do that’s done unto the Lord, from cleaning toilets to emptying the trash to serving your neighbors to singing songs.

True worship is as natural as breathing. In fact, you could say that worship is giving God His breath back. I love that imagery. God breathed life into us. Without that, we’re as dead as any corpse in a graveyard. And when God breathed the Holy Spirit into us, we became spiritually alive.

After that, how can we not offer God’s breath back as a kind of thank you? Even if it’s off-key singing or serving with a bit of self mixed in, God accepts it. Just as any parent treasures the scribblings of their little children presented as pictures, so God accepts our frail and finite offerings of worship, whether it’s in a church building or where we live, work, and play.

May the songs we sing tomorrow be an offering of God’s breath back to God, an extension of a lifestyle of declaring God’s worth every day of the week.

A Love that Conquers the World

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“The love for equals is a human thing–of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing–the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing–to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy–love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world” (Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat).

I think I know what kind of love I want. It’s the same kind of love that I need every single day. It’s the kind of love that infuriates the world, but also the kind of love that can save the world. Give me that kind of love.

A Friday Eve Prayer

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“O God, 
whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: 

Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; 

that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; 

where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 
one God, 

for ever and ever. 
Amen.“

I still believe that God never intended for His people to fit in. He meant (and still means) for us to stand out. We’re the city on a hill. We’re the salt and the light. We’re the physical manifestation of Jesus on the earth until He returns. We hold the only cure for this disease of sin that has ravaged the entire planet.

I kept thinking about the passage in James 1:27 where it says that pure religion is to take care of widows and orphans, i.e. the disadvantaged and unprotected, and to keep ourselves unstained in the world. It’s not an either/or proposition. It’s both/and.

We need to be unstained from Hollywood and from politics. I don’t mean we can’t vote or be involved, but I think we stand outside of both political parties and owe allegiance ultimately and only to a King and a Kingdom rather than to a flag or a country or any platform.

We’re called to be a people who show grace, who love our enemies, and who forgive those who hurt us. We’re not called to argue people into heaven but to love them like God in Jesus loved us when He was not willing that we should stay lost in sin but that we should come to repentance in salvation.

I still think the call to American Christians is to come out from among them and be separate. That might mean leaving churches and denominations that have lost the gospel. That might mean not affiliating with Democrat or Republican. That might mean being willing to risk ridicule for standing up for biblical truth.

I’m praying for another Great Awakening. I’m begging God for another revival like the Jesus Revolution of the early 70s. That’s what it’s going to take. No politician or President can fix what’s wrong with this country. Only Jesus can.

Prayer in the Mornin’, Prayer in the Evenin’ . . .

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“This order and discipline must be sought and found in the morning prayer. It will stand the test at work. Prayer offered in early morning is decisive for the day. The wasted time we are ashamed of, the temptations we succumb to, the weakness and discouragement in our work, the disorder and lack of discipline in our thinking and in our dealings with other people․all these very frequently have their cause in our neglect of morning prayer. The ordering and scheduling of our time will become more secure when it comes from prayer” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

I think starting the day off with God’s Word and prayer is key. Even though I am decidedly not a morning person, I still want to begin the day the right way. It’s not a superstitious thing where my day will go off the rails if I don’t start with the Bible and prayer. I do know that there’s a subtle shift in my thinking when I miss my morning devotional time.

But I do it not because of any reward or benefit but because God deserves it. He deserves the firstfruits of my day. And I definitely understand those who save their quiet time for night or just before bed. It’s hard to read the Bible when you can’t keep your eyes open. I get it.

But the real key is to just do it. Carve out time that suits you best. Don’t let your lack of being a morning person deter you from spending time with God in His word and in prayer. So, to borrow the old Nike slogan, just do it!

Living on this Side of the Election

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  • “It’s not about how the worship music makes us feel on Sunday morning, but how we live poured-out lives of worship from Monday to Saturday.
  • It’s not about how many verses we can quote to defend our political viewpoints, but how well we embody the Word made flesh to our politically opposite next-door neighbors.
  • It’s not about how pious our prayers sound during Sunday School, but how our hearts hear the whisper of God both in our hidden rooms and in our lived-out interactions with others” (Asheritah Ciuciu).

Now that we’re past the dreaded elections (or at least they were for me), we can hopefully return to normal. We can hopefully reach out across party lines to embrace and love those who voted differently than we did. We can understand that there is room in the Kingdom of God for blue and red (as well as many other colors).

The point is that we’re called to love our enemies, period. It doesn’t say to love them if they show remorse for their bad behavior. It doesn’t say to love them if they promise to reform. It says to love them the way Jesus loved those who crucified Him. And how did He do that? He forgave them. He died for them.

We’re also called to honor our leaders, according to Romans 13. That doesn’t mean only those who share my political ideology. It doesn’t mean those we like and admire and can respect. Remember when Paul wrote those words, the ruler was Nero, who was just about as bad and corrupt as they come. Nero was responsible for the martyring of many followers of Jesus. But Paul said to honor him because God in His infinite purposes sets up rulers, good and bad, to accomplish His will.

Ultimately, it helps to remember that we’re all broken. The problem isn’t just out there. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and can share the blame for the problems of this country. We would be wise to drop those stones we want to throw at the Trumps and Harrises of the world and their followers unless we can prove that we’re sinless.

If we live out of love as citizens of a Kingdom more than of a country, we do well. Our ultimate allegiance isn’t to any president or to any flag or any political party or ideology. It’s to a King and a Kingdom. It’s to Jesus who will still be on His throne long after all the presidents and kings and emperors are long gone.

Reframing Your Past, Present & Future

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I’ve never thought about gratitude like that before. I get that it changes the way you see your present and can shift how your future plays out, but to change your perspective on your past? That’s a game changer.

The old saying about grace is that it means that your past now serves a purpose instead of serving shame. Gratitude helps you to see how every part of your past, good and bad, has led you to the present moment. God was in all of it with you, taking those dark and painful moments to weave them in with the brighter colors.

Also, sometimes when you look at a famous painting too closely, it looks like a big chaotic mess. You can’t tell anything about it. But once you step back, it becomes clearer. The same applies for life — once you can step back after a few days or weeks or months, you can see more clearly what God was up to in that moment.

You don’t have to give thanks FOR those awful moments and tragedies. But you can give thanks IN them. Paul didn’t say give thanks FOR all circumstances but IN all circumstances, knowing God works all things together for good and there is a redemptive purpose for pain and loss.

I still think about that quote about muddy water becoming clear as it settles and is still. So do we. Everything becomes clear when we cease striving to make it make sense and can be still and know that God is God, to know that God is still in control and in charge.

And it all begins with gratitude.