Fascination With the Road Signs

The other day, I read an interesting and enlightening post over at Thoughts on the Way.

I am so thankful for the men which God has brought into my life – sometimes in person, sometimes through books. I still remember the electricity of hearing John Piper preach for the first time. In my mind he had to be at least 6’3”. I was shocked to find he was closer to 3’6”! I could tell you story after story concerning my exact location when for the first time I encountered several other men who have deeply impacted my life. The value of these men in regard to my growth in grace (and sometimes sanity!) can’t be calculated.

But O how dangerous they are to me! How easily I can get fascinated with the road sign! Men who are gifts to point us to Christ can become the object of our fascination.

And here’s the deceptive thing – it appears you are being God centered because you aren’t making much of men. But again this is an area which needs to be reformulated. God-centeredness is not self-degradation, or the degradation of other men. We often think that the one who is most humble will be the one who talks the worst about men. But even though you are centered on your own unworthiness, you are still centered on self.

- Mason

I think this also applies to my life as a Christian in a broader sense. The question is not only, "How often am I engrossed by the preacher and not the One being preached?" I should more often ask myself, "How important is being with God compared to ministry, songwriting and theology?"

In retrospect, I've found myself to be completely engrossed in the preacher (Paul Washer in particular) and not the subject being preached. So many times I am more interested in hearing Paul Washer preach because he is strong and convicting and even enjoyable to listen to. Scarce are the times that I truly meditate upon the message afterwards, communing with God and just being with Him so that I could grow in His ways based on what was preached.

Not only that, but too many times I find myself writing songs because I want to write. To be honest, my mindset when I write songs is sometimes completely off. There are times where I sit down and think, "Alright. I just want to write a beautiful song that is going to be popular and sung all over the world." There are times that I write songs because I'm bored, not because I want to bring the highest praise to the Lord.

As for the topic of theology, there have been many times that I've read Christian material just for the sake of knowing theology. Did I want to know more about God? Of course! But that motive was mixed with other motives, such as wanting to appear intelligent and godly amongst my Christian brethren.

All of these things (preachers, sermons, praise, theology) are meant to bring us closer to Him so that we could have an intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior. These things are meant to point us to Him! I'll be the first to admit that too many times I've focused on the road signs pointing me to Jesus and not on Jesus Himself.

Between the Altar and the Door

A few days ago, after watching a couple of NewSongCafe videos, I ended up surfing YouTube for Christian- and Worship-related material. I stumbled across a preview video for Casting Crown's album, The Altar and the Door, where Mark Hall talked about the songs, their meanings and the focus and calling of the band.

Something he said really affected me:

[The song] "The Altar and the Door" draws a picture of the frustrating journey we have of working things out of our Bible and into our lives. So to me, the altar represents those times where everything is black and white and everything makes total sense and you know the direction you're supposed to go and you know how you're supposed to live and it's all just perfect. And then you get up from the altar and you go out the door and by the time you're out of that door, it's as though everything just sort of leaks out.

The song "Slow Fade" deals with that fall because no one really falls. You know, you're not doing awesome one day coming out of a revival in your life and the next day you just crash. It never happens that way. It's always a slow series of small compromises that end up to the point where you're in a place that you thought you'd never be, doing something you thought you'd never do and totally rationalizing all of it, because your mind and your spirit have slowly changed to where you didn't notice it.

People never crumble in a day. It's always a slow fade.

- Mark Hall of Casting Crowns

I find that to be true. Nobody is ever saved and then commits murder the following day. As we live our lives, we still commit sins that we thought we were incapable of committing because we make compromises here and there and we allow ourselves to be lenient towards sin. As we compromise, our tolerance for sin grows. No one ever wakes up and decides to be a serial killer. It always starts off small.

But praise God for giving us His living Word. As we spend time in His Word and commune with Him daily, He has the power to change us, to cause us to grow in holiness and righteousness and to be sanctified from the ways of this world.

Time spent with the Lord is as good as it gets. Don't allow yourself to spend time with the Lord at the altar in a church but neglect Him when you're out that door. We all need to be in the Word at all times so that we don't compromise and fade and slide into sin.

Nothing In My Hands (Revision 3)

I suppose I should start posting up some of my songwriting so that it can all be consolidated on one blog.

Nothing In My Hands was written during a time where I felt far from God. I sought Him and I aimed to please Him but I think that was my problem; I was relying too much upon myself to please Him and not allowing Him to work within me. It was during this time that I was in a low-point; the first low-point since my true conversion.

I often wondered to myself if I was really saved or if that moment of conversion months prior was just another emotional high. I feared that the sins in my life meant that I wasn't growing in Christ and that my profession of faith was a false one. If I truly desired to please God, how could I live the life I was living?

And it was then that I spoke with someone and his words comforted me. He told me that sinless perfection, though it is something that we should strive for, is an impossibility during our stay here on earth. He told me that we will always sin regardless of how "good" of a Christian we are. He told me that my concern for my own sin and the fact that I was convicted of my sin was good evidence that I belonged to the Father.

So I wrote this song, which tries to convey the hopeless nature of all men apart from Christ. We must all remember that nothing we do is enough to earn God's love; He loves us unconditionally when we don't deserve it. This is why we all come before Him with nothing in our hands and this is why we cling to the only thing that gives us hope and life: the cross of Christ.

Nothing In My Hands

VERSE 1
Lost and hopeless, dead in sin
Lord, I needed You
I was wretched, blind and broken

You came down and You were slain
Lord, a sacrifice
My sins forgiven, I am Yours

PRECHORUS
Now there's nothing I can do but to trust in You

CHORUS
Nothing in my hands I bring
Simply to the cross I cling
Nothing in my hands I bring
Simply to the cross I cling

VERSE 2
Dry and thirsty, I long for You
Lord, You are my desire
You are the water for my soul

You conquered death and rescued me
Lord, You saved my soul
You shattered chains and set me free

As always, feedback and criticism for the lyrics are welcomed. If there is anything that is theologically incorrect or if something is wordy and does not convey the truth as well as it could, I'd prefer to fix it now!

Knowing Him Intimately

As an aspiring worship leader, I try to find as many worship-leading resources to help me cultivate my love for music in such a way that God would be glorified. I'm sure we all know of the popular worship artists, such as Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman. Their songs have been sung all over the world and they have helped lead many to worship God.

However, there are also worship artists that are under the radar, whether they choose to remain that way or because they're just starting. Somewhat recently, while watching a webisode of New Song Cafe, I came across a worship songwriter named Vicky Beeching. Her songs are a breath of fresh air from the typical Contemporary Worship scene, where most songs are watered-down in terms of theology and doctrine.

I just found that she maintains her own blog and I read one of her posts. She wrote:

[God] reminded me that I need to stop stressing myself out with doing and just rest in being with Him. He reminded me that it's only when we are connected to "The Vine" (John 15) that we bear fruit, not when we neglect the Vine by trying to bear fruit in our own strength.

And she ends her post by asking a question: "In your life, how is the balance between being with Jesus and doing things for Jesus? Is He calling you to spend more time alone with Him?"

I've come to realize that in the past few months, in my search for true doctrine and in my journey to avoid false teachings, I've grown so used to learning about God that I've forgotten to be with God. It's time to return to the basics, at least for now. Scripture comes first and foremost and literature from theologians comes second.

It's not enough to know about God; we need to know Him intimately.

Learning to Rely Upon Christ Alone

I try to be a faithful disciple of Christ. Since the day Christ saved me from the just wrath of God, I've had a desire to obey the commandments of the Father. I try to spend time in the Word daily; I try to praise and worship God with the way I live my life; I try to be loving and forgiving towards others, knowing that the forgiveness that God has granted me allows me to do the same. It's only through the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that I'm able to even desire such things, let alone act upon them.

But the truth is that there are a lot of sins in my life that I struggle with. There are sins in my life that not even my closest friends and family know about. I find myself committing these horrible acts all the while thinking, "I shouldn't be doing this. This is sin." And even though I realize I'm sinning, I still do it.

After committing an act of sin, I often find myself thinking, "Why did I do that? I knew it was sin but why did I do it? Next time, I won't. I'll be obedient to Christ next time."

It's not until recently that I realized the problem in such thinking. I was saying that I have the ability to stir up enough willpower to overcome sin myself. Suddenly, I was placing faith and trust in my own flesh and mind to overcome the sin that plagues my life. Fortunately for me, God has allowed me to come across Christian blogs that have helped me to realize the errors in my thoughts. I read a post on the Thoughts on the Way blog and felt much better after reading an excerpt from Charles Spurgeon.

Take your sins to Christ’s cross, for the old man can only be crucified there: we are crucified with him. The only weapon to fight sin with is the spear which pierced the side of Jesus ... [You] must go to the cross with [your sin], and say to Jesus, “Lord, I trust thee to deliver me from it.” This is the only way to give it a death-blow ... You must be conquerors through Him who hath loved you, if conquerors at all.

Reliance upon self is the reason why I have been failing. I praise God that He loves us so much that He is willing to allow us to stumble and fall so that we might learn to seek and rely upon Him and Him alone. I praise God that He so carefully watches over His children and disciplines them at the right time, not allowing them to wander any further from the path of Christ than they already have.

One Door Closes, Another Opens

I've migrated over to this blog from my previous one, Servant of the Lord, because the old blog lost focus. I branched off to create this blog so that everything from this point on can be together in one place with one focus.

So what is the focus of this blog? The focus of this blog is similar to the original focus of my ex-blog. I'm going to be journaling my personal walk with Christ and the revelations that God gives to me through His Word and through teachers of the Truth. This blog will have more of a personal feel but it will aim to be God-centered first, me-centered second.

I pray that the content of this blog will be edifying for any readers and I pray that the content of this blog will urge readers to seek out God and to know Him in a more intimate way, not just in knowledge. I also pray that in all things, glory would be to God and God alone.