Music Monday

Father of Mine

Frank

In the Holman Christian Standard translation, “fatherless” appears 40 times. The first instance reflects God’s passion, “You must not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.” (Exodus 22:22) Elsewhere, we read that God is the defender of the fatherless, he executes justice for the fatherless, and so on.

From The Mentoring Project, they estimate 25 million children are growing up in fatherless homes. Children from fatherless homes are more likely to be involved in violent crime, more likely to join a gang, more likely to become addicted to drugs, more likely to drop out of school, and so on and so on. You could argue correlation does not mean causation, but the statistics are too strong and broad to ignore. If you don’t think not having a father around affects our youth, check out the comments left yesterday, Father’s Day, on the YouTube page for the above video.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. God “defends the cause of the fatherless” (Deuteronomy 10:18). If we are after God’s own heart, then we should also be defending the cause of the fatherless. Here are just a sampling of online resources, blogs, and friends who have taken up this cause. Some are focusing on the fatherless, others are strengthening the fathers who are present. My prayer is that together we can reflect God’s heart and his character as the perfect Father. Not every father will be faithful, but God always will be. Perfect father of mine.

Save Your Life

Frank

So a couple of weeks ago, I played “All In” by Lifehouse to kick off my small group’s study of Chip Ingram’s Living on the Edge. Well, our study slipped a few weeks, but we’re picking it back up tonight. Not much more to add to that post other than another song to make the point. As I mentioned in “All In”, the idea of total surrender to Christ seems foreign in mainstream Christianity. This song is still growing on me, but there’s a lyric that keeps jumping out and grabbing me: “If you surrender, you will live… It’s gonna save your life”.

Here’s “Save Your Life” by Newsboys.

Sing!

Frank

I get a kick out of the song “Music” my Manic Drive. But every time I’d hear it, it would remind me of another song. And it was killing me because I couldn’t figure out which. Then I heard “Sing” by My Chemical Romance and the light went on. Two songs that musically have nothing in common, but I think share a common theme.

There’s a verse in NEEDTOBREATHE’s “Garden” that I think is appropriate to these two songs:

Let the songs I sing, bring a joy to you
Let the words I say, confess my love
Let the notes I choose, be your favorite tune
And Father, let my heart be after you

So for fun, enjoy these two songs to kick off your week.

I pray your life is a song, sing it loud.

Unitl the Whole World Hears

Frank

In case you missed it, the world did not end Saturday (but we’ll get a second chance in October). While it would be easy to point fingers and mock those who sold everything, quit jobs, and otherwise lived as though they wouldn’t be sitting next to you at church on Sunday, we need to remember that Jesus can return at any time, like a thief in the night.

With that in mind, I’ll repeat a point that was buried in the text Friday: don’t ask yourself what you would do if you knew you only had a short time to live, ask yourself what you would do if you knew in a short time you’d be standing before the Creator of the universe.

Another important point to consider regarding Jesus’ return is that he promised he would not return until the whole world hears.

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14, emphasis added)

While this could be disputed (the whole known world was reached during the time of the Acts of the Apostles) the point is still important considering the Great Commission in Matthew 28 and an alternate version in Mark 16. (make disciples of “every nation” in the former and go into “all the world” in the latter) Those commands are still valid today.

Will Jesus come back in October? I don’t know. He might come back tomorrow. But has the whole world heard the Gospel of Jesus? It is estimated that there are more than 11,000 “people groups” in the world (unique ethnicities, not necessarily nationalities) and six thousand are “unreached” (based on numbers from David Platt’s Radical Together). Another way to look at it is the 10/40 window where nearly two-thirds of the world’s population resides and includes the poorest regions of the world as well as the most unreached.

Either way you slice it, we have our work cut out for us if Jesus is to return in October. Maybe He was planning on coming Saturday and saw that we weren’t finished yet. No, that doesn’t work either, you’re either ready or you’re not.

So what are you doing to make sure the whole world hears?

All-In

Frank

I’m not much of a poker player. I can’t keep a stone-cold face to hide whether my hand is good or bad. And I don’t have much of a betting strategy. But I like to play. Maybe more so, I like to watch. There’s just something about watching pros at the table playing a game of wits, wondering what they are going to do next. I know it’s not for everybody, but I get a kick out of the tension and the drama, especially when someone decides to go all-in.

All-in. At that moment you are totally committed to your course. There’s no turning back. You either survive to fight another hand or you are knocked out. So you just hope beyond hope that you’re holding the better hand.

The dramatic made-for-TV reaction when going all in, is the player who stands up, steps back from the table and takes off either their hat or sunglasses. They dramatically hop around anxious for the results. And really, there’s no reason to stay at the table. At that point, there’s nothing more they can do but await the outcome.

I think a missing piece to modern-day Christianity is the notion of surrender. Going all-in, fully committed to Christ, with no turning back. Instead we subscribe to a casual faith from which flows a casual commitment. Consider Jesus’ own words:

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.” (Luke 14:31-32)

And then the kicker:

“In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” (v 33, emphasis added)

My small group has completed Francis Chan’s Crazy Love and now we’re moving on to Chip Ingram’s Living on the Edge. Surrender/going all-in is a significant theme of this book, as it digs into the example of discipleship described in Romans 12. I’m not going to blog on it week-by-week as I did with Crazy Love because I already did so last year. Check out the R12 tag for those posts.

I believe there’s a hunger in mainstream Christianity for something more… Christ-like. Almost daily this site gets hit on Google searches related to R12. Most frequently questions like, “why is Christianity so hard?” or “what does it mean to surrender to Christ?” It is sad that many cannot answer these fundamental questions (it’s not supposed to be and I’d love to sit down, open up the Bible and show you). I pray reading this blog leads some to the answers they seek. I pray also it calls each of us higher, away from casual complacency towards all-in surrender.

Your Heaven

Frank

I woke up the other morning with this song in my head for some reason. It’s Five Finger Death Punch’s “Far From Home”. The video below, with over three million hits, is a tribute to America’s Armed Forces. The video is moving, but I wonder about the lyrics.

The chorus goes: “It’s almost like, your heaven’s trying everything to keep me out” Keep me out alternates with “break me down.”

Doesn’t sound like any heaven I know. What is misunderstood in the Gospel message is that heaven is exclusionary- keeping certain people with certain beliefs or certain lifestyles out. Yet the truth of the Gospel is that heaven has come down to earth for every one of us. Jesus, the Son of God present at the creation of the world, walked on this earth in the flesh experiencing all the same struggles as you or I only to be gruesomely killed to atone for our sins. Heaven isn’t keeping anyone out because heaven came down to us.

It’s almost like, my heaven’s trying everything to get me in.