God loves you too much!

Dear God

Dear God,

Have I told you today how AWESOME and AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL You are, have I thanked You for the MERCIFUL gift of Jesus Christ! Each day I am grateful for Your ABUNDANT LOVE and COMPASSION! I am so thankful for the SALVATION and GRACE of life through the SACRIFICE of Your ONLY SON!

Forever Yours faithfully,

Me

When the World Lets You Down (Losing Heart)

Life is relatively unpredictable, we can plan our lives to the last detail and it rarely works out to our expectations. There are things in life that turn out to be just another let down. A couple of things recently gave me the feeling of being let down by people I had trusted and that bummed me out!

The first was when I bought the new album by a favorite group, Collective Soul, without really checking it out first. I think I might have heard one song off the album and without thinking went and bought it. I already own nine of their albums and was eagerly looking forward to enjoying this one too. In the past there had never been any reason for me to be concerned with any music from this group, occasionally there were some iffy words used in the lyrics, but nothing out and out foul.

On several of their albums it seemed as though they alluded to a belief in God, which made sense because the lead singer Ed Roland and his brother Dean the rhythm guitarist, were the sons of a preacher. Ed seemed very close to and proud of his father, when his father passed away he wrote a song on the album “Collective Soul” which came out in 2009, with the title “Hymn for My Father” in which it sounded as though Ed wanted to follow his father’s example by leading a godly life. They had made their entrance into the mainstream music scene back in ’95 with the release of the song “Shine”, it’s still considered their biggest hit and it’s all about Heaven shinning a light on man, showing him how to live! There are some other songs with a hint of spiritually in them like “Never Here Alone”, but mostly positive thoughts and lyrics to that effect. Songs all about love, romance and life in general were the substance of their albums for the most part and the sound of the music always intrigued me.

So imagine my shock when listening to the newest album “See What You Started by Continuing” when I got to about the seventh track and there it was something I never expected, the “s” word! It was just there once, but once was enough to bum me out! The title of the song is “Life” and it’s kind of ironic that I should consider it a downer! I just think artists should be more creative in their music and not be carbon copies of all the others! Most of the time artists add explicit words thinking it will help sell the music instead of letting the music sell itself. I think it takes far more talent to avoid those words and still convey the same feeling or thought. Luckily with today’s technology I was able to make myself a copy minus the offending song which will replace the original!

Another let down occurs when you find out that people are not who they portrayed themselves to be, this is a little harder to get past! Again this brings me back to my obsession with music, early on when I discovered “Christian” music there were some favorite groups I enjoyed listening to, Everyday Sunday was one of them. I own four of their albums and although not overtly Christian in their themes, they were played on Christian music stations, so I figured they were.

Well, I had a real shock when the lead singer Trey Pearson decided to come out and announce to the world that he has given in to his lust for men! Talk about explosion! The people you put your trust in have a tendency to let you down most of the time! Now even the “Christians” are turning to homosexuality, giving their lives over to the Devil instead of Christ!    

It’s very sad because you can’t be a Christian and a homosexual at the same time. The whole idea of being Christian is to follow and emulate Christ, by leaving the sins of your old life behind and changing, becoming a new creation, so you can’t stay in the sin of homosexuality without at least becoming celibate. In John 8:1-11, we are told that as Jesus was teaching in front of the temple one day, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery and put her in front of the crowd. They asked if according to the Law of Moses she should be stoned to death. Jesus kind of ignores them at first, but they press him for an answer so he tells them “he who has never sinned cast the first stone”. When the accusers heard this they slipped away one by one, starting with the oldest and soon Jesus was left alone with the woman. Then He says to the woman “where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” “No Lord” she said, and then Jesus said “neither do I, go and sin no more!”

Jesus didn’t say “ok, go back to your sinful life!” He told her to go and not to continue in the sin of adultery! So it’s the same for us, we can’t follow Christ without giving up our sins. So poor Trey has been tricked by the Devil into thinking he can hold onto his desire for other men and still call himself a Christian! You can’t sincerely and truly follow Christ if you can’t give up your sins and idols!

We are told in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”

Along with Ephesians 5:3-7 where it says “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.”

I interpret these passages to mean that if one is sexually immoral (a homosexual) we should not consider them as Christian and therefore separate ourselves from them. This could also be referred to as being a hypocrite, which is what Jesus often called the religious leaders and the Pharisees who expected the people to follow the laws of Moses, but they themselves did not. The difference would be if a homosexual person were to leave that sin behind and want to become a Christian, then that would be possible, because it’s all about changing from the old life to a new one in Christ!

So since Trey has renounced being a Christian in favor of being a homosexual, I can no longer listen to his music with Everyday Sunday, it troubles me to hear those lyrics coming from him knowing where his life is heading! I have to wonder if it was all a lie from the start, if he had just been hiding his true nature all those years! It’s not quite the same as with Collective Soul, I can listen to their other music, just not that one song, I’m just sad that they both gave in to the demands of the world! 

All though we suffer so many let downs in life, there is one being who can be trusted without fear to never let you down and He is our Creator, God!  As He tells us in Isaiah 46:4 “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” And again in Hebrews 13:5 “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” So take heart, God has given us his son Jesus Christ who will never deceive or leave you and will love you forever! 

The Promise of the Rainbow

Genesis 8:20-22
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.”

Genesis 9:8-17
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

The Voice of the Serpent

Why is it that the people who think their views should be tolerated, are the ones who are the least tolerant of others? Why do homosexuals think that we should tolerate their adverse behavior and allow them to call their union a marriage? Or let them adopt children? Why is it that children can learn in school about religious holidays and practices, such as the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah or Yom Kippur, along with the African-American celebration Kwanzaa, but not the celebration of Christ’s birth at Christmas or the true meaning of Easter? Most people celebrate Thanksgiving, but who are they expressing their thankfulness to? Why do we pledge our allegiance to One Nation under God, but at every turn we try to take Him out of it? Why is it ok to be pro abortion, including partial birth abortion (where the fetus is killed during birth) and to be vocal about it, but you can’t speak out against it or the sale of fetal parts? How did profanity and obscenity become an accepted part of the English language? Why is it that believers in Christ must learn to tolerate all these things, but no one seems to want to tolerate them? Why are Christians put down for wanting the world to have some shred of integrity, decency and moral fiber in it?

The new morale for the current American society is; there are no morals, no rules, nothing to guide us through life, except our own fantasies. Our own desires have become the focus and there is no right and wrong, no good or bad. The new philosophy of choice being that of secularism, which assumes that this world ”the material world” is all that we have by which and for which to live, so therefore any view of a spiritual essence or of other worldliness is by definition considered irrelevant or irrational. This form of secularization asserts that public life is to be governed by laws that are not influenced by religion, or any transcendent sacred notion. With the philosophy of pluralization all belief structures, such as religions, are held to be true, so you can believe anything you want and say that it is true. Then there is the privatization of beliefs, the socially required and legally enforced separation of our private lives and our public personas. In effect, privatization insists that issues of ultimate meaning be kept within our private spheres. If you take a close look at our society, you'll find that all those protesters from back in the sixties and seventies are now in positions of authority and who's agenda have they been pushing for?

We have let ourselves fall into the trap which was set back when time began, in the garden of long ago, when the serpent said to the woman “Did God really say you couldn't?” It has been a downward spiral for man ever since. The fall of mankind through Adam and Eve, brought sin and shame into this world and with them knowledge of what is right and wrong. They learned the lesson the hard way; they now knew the difference between right and wrong, but they had to leave their perfect home and life behind. After their exile from the garden they began what continues, even to this day, a constant battle to try to cover their shame and the guilt of sin on their own, apart from God. Each new generation putting that shame farther and farther behind them, until today we have no shame at all. We do the most heinous things without thinking; we live by our own terms, doing pretty much whatever we feel like. Then we try to remove the shame further by declaring it to be normal. As though it’s one's personal right to kill an unborn child, because a pregnant woman decides she can’t deal with the consequences of her behavior. There are circumstances such as rape or incest where pregnancy occurs, but those might be better dealt with in a more dignified manor for both the unborn child and the mother. Then some would have us believe that the sexual union of two people of the same sex is normal or that it is a natural thing for people to be attracted to others of the same sex. When we want to fulfill our desires, no matter how detestable or vile, we comfort ourselves by saying its normal and therefore ok. It’s as though we keep hearing the voice of the snake whispering in our ear, prodding us on, saying “Did God really say you couldn't? You will not surely die.” So we just keep twisting the truth to fit our desires.

The most upsetting thing is that the church has let this way of thinking filter into its very core, by accepting things as normal which are not, as though it is trying to fit into the world, when what it should be doing is putting God and Christ back where they belong, at the head and center of everything! Ravi Zacharias tells us the three moods of our current culture will do the following: secularization will hurt those we love through loss of shame, pluralization will hurt those we choose to hate through loss of reason and privatization will hurt ourselves through loss of meaning. Perhaps Christians and the church need to stop tolerating the things they know are wrong and start changing from within, putting the focus on becoming more Christ like in their dealings with the world by learning to address the needs of the individual and not to be distracted by their outward appearance or behavior. Maybe our society needs to return to its earlier morals, ethics and values and the church should lead the way!

Profanity in Christian Music

Does profanity have a place in Christian songwriting?

I was very confused by an article I read in an online Christian Music magazine awhile back, it was about a disagreement that an artist, Derek Webb, had with his record label, INO. Apparently there was some problem with the release of his album “Stockholm Syndrome”, the matter was centered around his choice of words in the lyrics of a song. I hadn’t heard the song at that time, so I didn’t know the exact word he used. But from the article, I gathered it wasn’t a very nice one. Webb claimed that the song and its lyrics were very important to the album and his work.

I had really liked Derek Webb and loved his work with the group, Caedmon’s Call. I own one of his solo albums and was considering checking out more of his work, but this story had left me very troubled. I later had the misfortune of hearing firsthand the song and the lyric, which turned out to be the infamous “S-word” at a Christian Music Festival in a room filled with people of all ages, including young children! Why would Webb, a Christian artist or an artist with Christian beliefs, find it necessary to use profanity in his song? As believers and followers of Christ, we are to be living and behaving in a manner that was exemplified by Christ and ultimately glorifies God! So my question is this “does the use of profanity glorify God and if not, then why use it?” The Bible gives us some clear guidelines as to how followers should try to conduct themselves. The Old Testament states in Psalm 63:3 “Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.” Then in Proverbs 4:24 it says “Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.” And again in Proverbs 10:32 “The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse.” Along with the idea that we are to be reborn and therefore changed, it tells us in Colossians 3:8 “But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.”

With all this in mind, I just don’t understand the need to include crude words in the lyrics of a song, especially songs written with the express purpose of spreading the word of God and the message of his love to others. But even if Webb’s song is just a song about his life, his own experiences or life in general, why add an unsavory word? We would expect to find this type of thing in the secular, unsaved world, as the prowess of mainstream bands today is built on how lewd and graphic their lyrics are, as though this makes them more creditable musicians and better songwriters. Bands like Green Day, Blink 182, and so many others have always said whatever they felt would shock and wow the listener. But when bands like Lincoln Park, who boasted that they didn’t need to use profanity to get their message across, decide to add so much, that their music now carries a “Parental Warning” label, it becomes really sad! Although bands sometimes find it necessary to re-invent themselves, changing their music styles or sound, which is understandable in the market these days, where there is so much music, that it all starts to sound the same. But Lincoln Park’s decision doesn't seem to be about their re-invention and this type of behavior takes away from their credibility and makes me think they are small minds with little talent! What about the argument, art for art sake? But is it really art or just garbage? I tend to think true artists, with true gifts, would be able to express themselves without degrading others or life itself! Should we sacrifice our principles for art? At what cost? Wouldn’t it be more admirable to sacrifice our art for our principles? Whatever happened to the moral majority? It has become the moral minority!

Even before I discovered Christ, after having kids and driving around listening to the same music I’d listened to since I was a teen, I had the revelation one day that most of it was unfit for little ears. So I continued to listen, but only in private, away from the kids, kinda like a music junkie! But when I found Christ (or He found me) I could no longer ignore such issues, how could I continue to listen to music so highly saturated with coarse language and explicit imagery in good conscience? Then came my discovery of “Christian” music, I was so thrilled to find another realm of music that would fulfill my inner need to rock, head bang, whatever, but is way better for my soul and those little ears!

I started listening to “Christian Music” to escape the madness! But now, has that madness found a way into my new realm? Maybe there is something deeper to consider here, if Webb and other Christian artists start using these words in their songs, what will the world imply from it? That Christians are just another bunch of hypocrites, or that they are just like everyone else? As Christians, we are to be set apart from the things of this world that will drag us down into the pit. There is a very fine line here and I wonder if it really should be crossed. Does the use of this word glorify God in anyway? What about integrity? When artists do things like this, I believe it corrupts the integrity of their work. To me they seem to have lost sight of some of their original intentions behind their music, the ones that sent them on the journey in the first place! The Bible puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 6:12 “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” It also gives us these warnings in 1 Timothy 4:12 “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” Then again in Titus 2:7-8 “In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may have nothing bad to say about us.”

By using profanity in their songs what kind of example are believers setting for the rest of the world? Will it just give the world more bad things to say about Christians? My hope is that Webb and others will have well thought out answers to these questions!

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

Are there really such things as False Prophets or false teachers, out there in the world today? I hadn’t really given it much thought until recently, when I received an email from the Barnes and Nobel store about some new books by authors I was unfamiliar with. But there was one I thought I had heard of before, Joel Osteen. I didn’t know anything about him except that I had seen him speaking on T.V. a few times and I was wondering if he was a Christian preacher or what. So on a whim, I Googled him and found some unsettling stuff, one article was titled “Is Joel Osteen a False Prophet” and another was “Why I Called Out Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer”. 

In the Bible there are many warnings of False Prophets, in Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus says this “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.”

1Timothy 6:5 tells us “These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth, to them a show of godliness is just a way to become wealthy.” And in Galatians 1:6&7 we are told “I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.”

In Romans 16:17&18 we read “I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naïve people.” And Colossians 2:8 where we read “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

As I read through these articles I was greatly disturbed by the allegations, I had seen Joyce Meyer on T.V. before, but never really took the time to listen to what she was preaching. She and Osteen never seemed to be presenting the Gospel in a fashion that drew me in and made me want to watch and listen, actually it never really appeared like they presented it at all!

I had grown up in the Protestant and Methodist churches which never seemed to preach from the Bible and I didn’t really learn a whole lot until I found the Bible preaching church I now attend. I find that I am more drawn to speakers who quote the bible and go into detailed explanations, than those who use vague theology as a means of justifying their teachings, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to do.

So as I began reading these articles, I became concerned, I had never heard of the Prosperity Gospel or the Word of Faith movement before and knew nothing about either. I believe Joyce Meyer is a proponent of Word of Faith and Joel Osteen is pushing the Prosperity Gospel. 

In the article about Osteen I learned that Joel had not been called by the Spirit or even God, to preach the Good News Gospel, but had been appointed by his mother when his father died some years after establishing the Lakewood Church near Houston Texas. So he was thrown into the position of heading a Charismatic mega church after being the media producer behind The John Osteen TV program whose television outreach had gone to a global market. With no Bible College or Seminary training he became a motivational speaker and author, after taking over for his father. He is very vague in his doctrine and doesn’t seem to use the bible as his source of inspiration or for facts, basically saying people can believe whatever they want, but can get wealth, good health and fame from God by working hard and donating to his church. So what once was a church based on relatively sound Bible doctrine became a source of wealth instead of a church founded on Biblical truth reaching out to a lost and hurting world!

What I found out about Joyce Meyers was equally troubling, not only does she live an extravagant lifestyle, spending millions on 5 homes for herself and her children along with a personal jet and expensive cars, all with the money earned from speaking engagements, books sales, and the donations to her ministry; but she preaches a false doctrine called Word of Faith. Although she seems to have had some formal training in ministry at Life Christian University in Florida (which is an unaccredited institution) and has been given an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity by Oral Roberts University which is an accredited institution, her teachings do not follow biblical theology. 

Her teachings border on science fiction, one such teaching, is that when Christ died on the cross, He went to Hell and became the devil. Yes, we all can agree He went through Hell on the cross, one can’t even imagine the pain and suffering He took on for us, but nowhere in the Bible does it say He went from being God to being the devil, then back to being God again! In 1 Peter 3:18-22, it does tell us that Christ suffered physical death, but was raised to life in the Spirit and went to preach to the spirits in prison who had disobeyed God long ago when He caused the terrible flood, before ascending to Heaven to sit in the place of honor next to God. Those people who died before Christ came to earth are often referred to as being asleep, but will rise along with everyone else on the day of Christ’s return to be judged.

Then there is her bold statement that she is in no way, shape or form, a sinner! When the Bible clearly says in Romans 3:22-24 “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” 

She also preaches that we are “little gods” and if we put our minds to it, we can speak things into existence, such as good health or wealth, the Bible does tell us that we were created in the image of God, but nowhere does it say we have the power to “speak” things into reality just as God did when he created the world! She further insists that one must be careful of what they confess, because the wrong confession is a confession of defeat and failure, which will bring on defeat and failure. Confessing sickness or lack of finances will actually bring them on, you could lose your blessings from God if you make the wrong confession. The truth is, the only thing God requires from us is Faith in Christ and repentance of our sins along with trying to do what is right in the eyes of God.

There are many charismatic speakers, teachers and those that call themselves preachers out there in the world today, unfortunately too many are not out there presenting the truth of the Gospel, but seeking wealth and fame! It’s a really scary thought that Oprah Winfrey has gone from being a talk show host, with some strange takes on things, to a “Christian” with even stranger preaching! But what is she preaching? It’s not the Gospel, so just what is it? Apparently it’s a religion based on the song by John Lennon titled “Imagine” with the following lyrics:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

There is a huge movement towards a one world religion where all spiritual paths are equally valid (except if you believe in Jesus Christ of course), and Oprah is right in the forefront of that movement. She is basically saying there is no God, no Christ and we are all masters of our own fate! Actually I think she is into Star Wars big time, because she claims to believe in “the FORCE”! 

These are just a few of the many False Prophets and teachers out in the world today. We need to be careful and not let ourselves be led astray by “wolves in sheep’s clothing”! Open your eyes and take a good look around the world today! Where is the truth? So far I personally have found the Truth of God’s word in the Bible!