"I Want to Stand My Ground Unshaken, But I Want to Tremble When I Kneel...."

I know this probably doesn't qualify as a real post, but I wanted to share this song with any of you who still bother checking my blog (I'm inconsistent, I know...). At any rate, here it is: "Let Me Sing" by Andrew Peterson. I hope you find it as beautiful and inspiring as I do.

P.S. - If you like this, I should let you know that he's coming out with a new album, "Light for the Lost Boy," later this month (that makes me do a happy dance inside). I haven't been let down by an album of his yet.

Oh...and I might know of a bookstore where his newest album will be available. ;)

It's The Way That You Do It

As Christians, we do a lot of the same things that world does: We eat. We sleep. We clean. We talk. But it's how we do them that shows we're different, set-apart, holy. It's good to remember that whatever our hand finds to do we should be doing it to the glory of God.

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer."
(Psalm 19:14)

"If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
(1 Peter 4:11)

What is Man?

Lord, what is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? 

We’re made a little lower than the angels, but called, elected, and adopted by God to become joint heirs in the riches promised to His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, the King of Angels, First Born from the dead; first, but not last. This is part of the inheritance He as the First Born has shared with us – the right to become Sons of God, the right to be raised again on the Last Day. Resurrected, never more to die, never more to be dying; as Jesus is, so we shall be. “And we shall be like Him – for we shall see Him as He is.” 

But what are men?

We’re the highpoint of Creation – the image of the Incorruptible God, yet we are corruptible. We’ve fallen, but unlike the Angels (who once fallen are irredeemable), You have chosen by Your good pleasure to redeem us, if only we call on Your name. There’s no price we can pay for our redemption, no lifetime would be long enough to work off this debt. Our hearts are prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love…. And yet, You want us. You teach us faithfulness at the cost of breaking Your own heart each time we forget faith. But You remember our frame, that we are but dust.

What is man?

Man is the image of God in faithless dust.

What is God?

God is the Faithful Creator of dust. Sustainer of all things living. The Savior of all things redeemed and yet to be redeemed.

Humbled, all I can say is, “Lord, what is man that You are mindful of him?”

Love

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." -C.S. Lewis

Depression

I'm not a happy-go-lucky optimists who doesn't know what the word "sad" means. I'm familiar first-hand with depression and its often ensuing apathy. But I’m realizing that with as incredible a God as I represent (not just to this world, but also to the spiritual realm), what a gross disservice I’m doing my Savior when I let myself wallow in despair, in essence telling satan, "You're right. I am hopeless."

When I make it about me, I have no compelling reason or ability to fight. When it's about God, I have every reason and means to conquer.

Truth

"We like love. Love deals in relationships, while truth deals in cold hard facts.
 

"But Jesus never compromised one for the other. The problem we have with truth is that it cares nothing for our feelings or preferences, and pays no tribute to our opinions or the sacredness of our dogma. Truth is about reality. It is concerned not with the way we believe things to be, or the way we would like then to be, but with the way things actually are. Truth is spun from the fabric of facts and therefore cannot bend to accommodate the wishes or sensibilities of the masses. Truth is not the product of a vote or a democracy and has nothing to do with the will of the people. It will not bow to the wealthy like a preening politician. It cannot be bribed. Nor can it, in the name of compassion, make exception for the aged or the unfortunate. It never has and never will enter into agreement with the proud or unbelieving and offers no parley to the religious and the self-righteous. Truth is what it is." 

-Ben Davenport, from the forward to "The Bravehearted Gospel"

Below is the song "After the Last Tear Falls" (by Andrew Peterson).

I hope it encourages your heart as much as it has mine.

 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne:

'Look! God's dwelling is with men,

and He will live with them.

They will be His people,

and God Himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Death will exist no longer;

grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer,

because the previous things have passed away.' 

Then the One seated on the throne said, 'Look! I am making everything new.'"

(Revelation 21:1-5)