Time Travel

Travel back in time with me a bit, back to the Garden of Eden. The fall of man, after the fall, God curses the serpent, and the woman and the man. He says in Genesis 3:17 God curses the ground, the earth. Not only are we cursed, but the earth is cursed as well. Then lets fast forward to an unknown time, Revelation 22 talks about the new Jerusalem. So we have two choices, look back to the garden and try to restore the order, to undo the curse, or we can look forward to the city and hope for what is to come. I think a lot of times as Christians we tend to look back to the garden, to try to fix the curse, but we can’t fix it. We are cursed, we are bad, we are evil people, we can’t do anything about it. The only thing that can help us is Jesus Christ. He helps us overcome the curse. He turns our heads to look toward the new city. So on this journey, press on towards the hope that we have to come, a new heaven and a new earth.

Artist of the Week

One of my most favorite bands of all time is Third Day. I have seen them in concert 5 times, and they are simply amazing. Mac Powell has a magnificent voice that is very distinct. You know that a band that is that big and has been around for as long as they have is real. They are in it for the right reasons. God has given all of them amazing talents. One of the coolest things that Third Day and especially Mac Powell does is help start up bands into the Christian music realm with his production company. One of the bands he helped get into the Christian music industry is this week's artist of the week. Revive comes out of Australia and they rock. Their newest album titled Chorus of the Saints is a hit in the US. Mac Powell produced this album for Revive. I could write the story of Revive and make you read it on your computer, but instead I will let you watch the story, so click here to watch the story of Revive.

I give Revive 4 out of 5 dundies on lyrical content. I give them 4 out of 5 dundies on musical style and talent. They have a great style of worship music. They are very talented musicians as well, and I am looking forward to more albums from them as they continue to use the talents that the Lord has given them. Here are the lyrics of this weeks song, You Know. This song also features Mac Powell. The Australian accent of lead singer Dave Hanbury and Mac’s voice really blend well for a great song. Click on Artist of the Week to hear the song on YouTube.
Enjoy!

I have so many dreams for my life
I'm going this way and that
I'm spending so much time worrying
About how it's all turning out

But You know where I've been
And You know where I'm going
'Cause You see all my plans for what they are
I lay them all down

You keep the sparrow flying in the sky
Why do I question You
The flowers of the field are beautiful
I'm a child in the arms of my Father

And You know where I've been
And You know where I'm going
'Cause You see all my plans for what they are

So many times You've held me near
And brought me through the storm
And You never made me do it on my own
Through broken hearts and broken dreams
My hope in You is strong
There is nothing in my life You haven't known

And You know where I've been
And You know where I'm going
'Cause You see all my plans for what they are

And You know
And You know
'Cause You see all my plans for what they are
I lay them all down

Loud and Clear

What should I do? What is there to do when you are surrounded by people who don’t want anything to do with the true Gospel? When the Gospel as the Bible clearly shows us is called old fashioned or is out of context because our culture is so “different”, what do you do? Well, you do what the Bible tells you. Paul solemnly charges Timothy to preach the Word in 2 Timothy chapter 4. So when people around you are saying that the message of the Gospel isn’t about Christ dying on the cross but about Jesus loving those around Him, you preach the Word. Here at Moody Pastors’ Conference, Michael Easley preached on this last night. He said that the Greek word is where we get the word herald. We need to herald the message, and that means say it LOUD and CLEAR! That is the key, the most important thing. Loudly proclaim the message of the Gospel to a destructive generation. Paul also tells Timothy to reprove, rebuke, and exhort those who are destructive. So let them have it! But wait, Paul says do it with patience. That means preach the message loud and clear, but not by condemning and damning people. We are on the verge of having a destructive generation that will throw away the Word of God for a feel good message. So our charge is to preach the Word loud and clear. It is simple, so do it.

reFOCUS

Have you ever been hunting and look down your rifle into the scope or maybe glass the countryside with your nocs and you find that they aren’t focused right? I know I have. What is even worse is when you are looking through your nocs and they start to fog up. That has happened quite often with me, especially on cool mornings after I have walked a good distance. Another thing that bugs me is that my dad has this scope, a long range target scope with a tiny dot in the middle and really fine cross hairs. The scope must be faulty, because I can’t see the reticle at all. However, everyone else can see it fine, just not me, so, *sigh*, perhaps the fault lies not within the scope.
This morning I flew into Chicago with 3 other pastors in our area. We are attending Moody Bible Institute's Pastors Conference. The theme for this year is refocus. There are a lot of times in my life that I need to refocus my eyes to see where I am heading. When God is directing me I see clearly, but when I turn away a bit it gets a little fuzzy. At that moment I don’t know which way to go and it is so hard to tell. Usually I go the wrong way and the farther I go, the more I realize that I need to refocus my life. All it takes is a turn of a knob to focus a scope or binoculars. In our spiritual lives, it takes a flip of a page. Open up God’s Word to see what He has to say to us. It also takes some bending of our knees. Bow down before the Almighty Creator of the Universe and ask Him to guide you back on track. With the flip of a page and bending of our knees, we can refocus and will be able to see clearly again. My hope is that this week I will be able to truly refocus and see what God has in store for me, my family, and my ministry.

Rubbish - Part 5

Garbage, trash, refuse, waste, or rubbish, we all have them in our lives. Some of the things are absolutely despicable, while others are normal and may seem appropriate. I am going to go through the list that Paul provides for us in Philippians 3:4-7 [T]hough I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
Blameless – Paul considered himself righteous when it came to the law. There was no room for blame because he was righteous. But to whose standard? It is obvious that it was to his standards or the standard of the Pharisees. Paul was not righteous as Abraham was. Abraham was counted as righteous because of his faith. Paul counted himself righteous because of his works. Now, there are two areas we can find ourselves doing the same thing. One is thinking that good works can help you get to heaven. The other is thinking that doing good works keeps you in God’s favor. Let’s start with the first one. Works do not get you into heaven. If they did, then there would have been no need for Christ to die on the cross. Putting your trust in Christ as your Savior is what gets you to heaven. A person can do good works as Paul did before his conversion and not make it to heaven. Paul put his trust in Christ and he is now in heaven. Now this brings us to the second one. Since we are talking about Paul, let’s use him as a hypothetical. Let’s suppose that Paul trusted in Christ as his Savior and left it at that. Would he be in Heaven? Yes. Even if he never did a good work in his life? Yes. How? Well, we could ask the same question about the thief on the cross. He put his faith in Christ right before his death. What good things could he do? He was stuck on a cross. However, Jesus told him he would be in paradise that day. If you don’t believe that putting your trust in Christ alone is what gets you to heaven, then that makes Jesus a liar. The thief would have never gone to paradise. So what is the purpose of works and what does James mean by “faith without works is dead”? Well, works are valuable, and God wants us to do good works. If we don’t we are disobeying commandments. Paul told the jailor that all he needed to do is believe on the name of Jesus Christ and he and his family would be saved. Now to put this in movie terms, that is the ticket to get you in the theatre. What seat do you want? Do you want popcorn, pop, jujubes? The works you do determine that. Works put jewels in your crown and Paul makes it clear that all our works will be tested and if you don’t have any, you will escape as though through fire (1 Cor. 3:10-15). So Paul considered the works he did before his conversion as rubbish, because they were for the wrong reasons. They were for selfish, prideful reasons. When we serve, we need to do it with God’s intentions, with the other person’s needs and desires at heart. Don’t hold the door open so you can hear the thank you. Don’t get mad at someone because they didn’t thank you. If you do, then you are doing it for the wrong reason. Let us do works for the right reason, not for legalistic or selfish reasons. Obey the commandments of God because of your love and reverence for Him.

Rubbish - Part 4

Garbage, trash, refuse, waste, or rubbish, we all have them in our lives. Some of the things are absolutely despicable, while others are normal and may seem appropriate. I am going to go through the list that Paul provides for us in Philippians 3:4-7 [T]hough I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
To the law and to zeal – Paul was a Pharisee who studied under Gamiliel, one of the most well known and respected Pharisees of the day. Paul was good at what he did, he was there when Stephen was stoned. His name was Saul at that time (remember, Jesus changed his name to Paul on the road to Damascus). To understand a little better of who Saul was, we should look at what a Pharisee is and when they came into existence. Scholars believe that the Pharisees came into existence somewhere around 400-300 BC. The purpose of the Pharisees was to help the people of Israel, the remnant that was left, to draw closer to the heart of God. They wanted people to know the law and to live righteously as God commanded them to. They started out with good intentions, stuck to the Torah, and things looked good for them. As time went on, the Pharisees thought that there were some areas of life that needed a little extra conviction. Areas where the law wasn’t too clear on. So they started to add to the law. Now, during the day of Jesus, the Pharisees were quite corrupt and had added hundreds of things to do and not to do on the list. A lot of these things they added they did so to make themselves look better. Not to God, but to others.
And that is where I want to come in and talk about how we can apply this to our lives. The Pharisees started with not just good intentions, but godly intentions. They wanted to help the people of Israel to live by the shema (Deut. 6:4-9). But as time went on, the Pharisees got in the way of themselves. Do we ever do that? Do we start with good intentions and find out later that we tripped over ourselves many times along the way? I know I do, and most likely if you don’t think you do, you are in denial. It is hard to help others in their relationship with God without making reference to some of your disciplines or convictions. And it isn’t wrong to do that necessarily, but it becomes wrong when you show them or tell them about what you do to make yourself feel good and puff yourself up a bit. The key is to do it with humility. Every time I hear the word “humble”, I think back to Numbers 12:3. The book of Numbers was written by Moses, and that passage refers to Moses as the most humble man on earth. Is it a contradiction? No, it is the inspired word of God. Moses was so humble that when God told him he was the most humble, he still was humble, he never got puffed up. My goal is to be like that, to not have an ego, to let my pride go and truly come before Christ in a humble manner. That is what Paul wanted as well. Paul was well known in the Pharisaic realm. But when Christ met him on the road to Damascus, Paul was humbled. Do you ever feel like you get knocked off you donkey when your pride level is a little to high? It hurts, doesn’t it? But it causes you to look around and see where you have gone wrong and which way you need to go. Paul considered his Jewish stature as loss for the sake of Christ. Let us do the same to our stature that hinders us from coming before God.

Artist of the Week

Artist - NewWorldSon
Album - Salvation Station
Song - Salvation Station

Music is something that can make you move in mainly two different ways. You can move to the beat and do a little headbob and tap your feet, or you can move, and I mean really MOVE. You find yourself dancing all over the place and using every extremity to move with the beat. Every now and then there comes a band that will take over every muscle in your body and make you move and truly get jiggy with it. This week’s spotlight is on a band that makes you move, NewWorldSon. Their style of music is soul music, and if soul music can’t get you moving, then something is wrong with you. These four guys are talented musicians, and you know that they are going to be good just by looking at them. Anytime a bassist uses an upright, you know that there is going to be some good rhythm to the music. Their song Workin’ Man is a fun upbeat song that makes you want to get up and dance. The song that I am focusing on is called Salvation Station. Here is what lead singer Joel Parisien has to say about the song, "This is my response to Curtis Mayfield’s lyric: ‘People get ready, there’s a train comin’. You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.’ I thought, well, if I don’t need any baggage, then you don’t even need to slow down, I’ll just hop on!"
If you click on artist of the week, you will find a video of this song. Now, I will tell you in advance that the video is about 10 minutes long, and they spend half the time jamming away and are accompanied by Chops Horns (famous horn section accompaniment for Alicia Keyes, The Police, Funkadelics, and the Rolling Stones). Somewhere in the video between 6 and 7 minutes Joel starts jamming on a kazoo, and it sounds good. So you know he is talented. I give these guys 5 out of 5 dundies on lyrical content. They don’t have much variation, but when you take the style of music into consideration, they do a wonderful job lyrically. I give them 6 out of 5 dundies on musical style and talent. Like I said before, these guys are extremely talented and they just make me want to dance like a fool.
Here are the lyrics, and please check out the video.
Enjoy!!

There’s a train leaving from Calvary and it’s goin’ to salvation station
There’s a train leaving from Calvary and it’s goin’ to salvation station

I’m gonna jump that train I’m gonna jump that train
I’m gonna jump that train oh Lordy I
I’m gonna jump that train I’m gonna jump that train
And we gonna reach salvation station in the sky
Gonna leave sin city leave it all behind
‘Cuz where we goin’ they don’t take that kind
Gonna leave sin city leave it all behind
‘Cuz where we goin’ they don’t take that kind

Can you hear that whistle blowin’
And can you see that black coal smoke?
Can you hear that ole whistle blowin’
Salvation station, that’s where we goin’