The Me-Centered Gospel

This the second post in a row referencing Keith  Green.  If you don’t know who he was you can find a lot of information on the Internet, but bascially he was a passionate follower of Jesus and a gifted song writer who died in 1982 at the age of 28 along with his two children in a plane crash.

What I appreciate the most about Keith Green’s life and testimony is his passion for the Gospel which caused him to focus much of his song writing and preaching on the wretched condition of our hearts and our tremendous need for Jesus to perform a heart transplant.

In today’s ultra me-centered culture where we have even managed to make the Gospel more about us than about Jesus, I think the video below is helpful in re-forming our understanding of the Gospel.

Oh, LORD

This song really touched my heart this morning.  It’s a live version with Keith Green making the following comments before he started singing.

“On Monday night this week…about midnight I wrote a letter to the LORD.  I didn’t know where to mail it so I put it in my Bible.  I asked Him, ‘LORD You’ve got to do something about my heart.  You know a lot of time’s gone by since I met You and it’s starting to harden up…You know, it’s just kinda natural.  I wanna have baby skin, LORD.  I wanna have skin like a baby on my heart.  It’s starting to get old and wrinkled, calloused.  Not becasue of anything I’m doing.  It’s because of a lot of things I’m not doing.  And I stayed up til about 2  in the morning writing this song.”

Oh, LORD You’re Beautiful

Oh LORD, You’re beautiful
Your face is all I seek
For when Your eyes are on this child
Your love abounds to me

Oh LORD, my body’s tired
But You keep reminding me
Of many holy, tireless men
Who spilled their blood for Thee

Refrain:
I want to take Your Word and shine it all around
But first help me just to live it LORD
And if I’m doing well, help me to never make a sound
Except to give all the glory to You

Oh LORD, my faith is small
And I need a touch from You
Your Book of Books lies undisturbed
And the prayers from me too few

Oh LORD, please light the fire
That once burned bright and clear
Replace the lamp of my first love
That’s fueled with Holy fear

Labor Day Ponderings

James 4

^13-15And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”

 ^16-17As it is, you are full of your grandiose selves. All such vaunting self-importance is evil. In fact, if you know the right thing to do and don’t do it, that, for you, is evil.

James 5

^1-3 And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment.

 ^4-6All the workers you’ve exploited and cheated cry out for judgment. The groans of the workers you used and abused are a roar in the ears of the Master Avenger. You’ve looted the earth and lived it up. But all you’ll have to show for it is a fatter than usual corpse. In fact, what you’ve done is condemn and murder perfectly good persons, who stand there and take it.

 ^7-8Meanwhile, friends, wait patiently for the Master’s Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time.

Being ‘Christian’

A pastor I admire once said, “America is the hardest place in the world to be a Christian.”  I would probably replace ‘Christian’ with ‘true follower of Jesus’ because I think the word ‘Christian’ today has little to no real meaning…especially in America…a so-called ‘Christian’ nation.  It is interesting isn’t it…how some of the very things the ‘Christian right’ laments are the result of the the very things the ‘Christian right’ has neglected. I thank God that He is awakening many to the futility and outright idolatry of ‘mainstream American Christianity’ that treasures freedom, captialism, and comfort more than Jesus and that looks upon many in our city and our world with disdain and disgust rather than with the love and compassion of God that flows from a heart that truly recognizes the depth of his/her own rescue by the hand of God.

I say all this not as one who has ‘arrived’ but as one who is continually being confronted with my own duplicity.

Father God, continue to awaken us from our slumber before it’s too late…deliver us from the ‘American Dream’ and stir our hearts for Your Kingdom Come…all for the sake of Your own great Name!

Stormy with a Promise of God

Sometimes God calms the storm.  Sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms His child.

“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.”   Romans 8:35-39

Thankful for a GOD who never lets go…who finishes what He starts!!

Clear and Present Dangers

Interesting quote from almost a century ago…

“In answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.” William Booth