Monday Morning Music Ministry

5-27-24

Last week’s message inspired more responses from readers than we usually receive. It was a Guest essay by Christine Eves, a story about wanting to share her love of Jesus with some repairmen – more properly, I should say, her story of wanting to share the love Jesus has for them.

Readers reported having “been there” – wanting to “witness,” or invite, or pray with someone… but sometimes being reluctant. Well, her story was testimony of how God provides the circumstances, and gives us the words, when we seek such help.

That’s how God works. He is “our ever-present help in time of trouble”… and even when “trouble” is not a crisis but a desire to do His will. You might say it is a job description of the Holy Spirit.

I want to have us remind ourselves that, as with prayer and so many other things in God’s kingdom, “story” is a two-way street.

We want to tell God’s story, to share His goodness and His admonitions and His promises. We should ache to do so; we should be overflowing with passion to tell the story of Jesus.

But no less – do you know this? do you believe this? – God is just as excited to tell our story.

The Bible is full of stories about His people. How they might have struggled, even grievously sinned, but overcame. How the faithful were blessed… and how even harlots and murderers found salvation. Hebrews Chapter 11 is called the “Hall of Fame of Faith” – recounting the stories of notable figures who persevered and came through. The Disciples were a ragtag, average bunch who eventually changed the world.

In a real way, the entire Bible is an album of average people having common challenges and experiencing supernatural breakthroughs in their lives. Remember the Bible verse – and picture it – that “all of Heaven rejoices when a sinner is saved”!

A church I attended in Philadelphia, a large congregation that attracted many visitors each Sunday, ended its services with an invitation for anyone who was moved by the message to come forward and confess a desire for salvation, and receive prayer. The pastor sometimes waited. And, occasionally, waited and waited. The worshipers did too. But when someone went forward, the church erupted in applause and cheers, holy encouragement. What a picture of Heaven!

So, I am talking about the “other side of the coin” of the desire to share the story of Jesus. In uncountable ways, God desires to tell our stories too. Jesus invites. The Holy Spirit moves. We respond. And Heaven rejoices.

Another confirmation of this point of view: we are assured that, when confessing Christ, “our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” In that sense, the Gospel Story never has a “The End.” In another sense, we read the exposition of the Gospel Message in many of the Epistles; but it is legitimate to substitute your name, your town, maybe your church, where in the New Testament those books begin, “The letter to…”

I want to tell you about two servants of God who had passions to both hear and tell the Story of Jesus… and in so doing, their stories have become blessings to millions.

Frances J Crosby, born in the 1800s, was blinded as an infant by the application of bad topical medicine to an eye ailment. “Fanny” was talented and industrious and worked in several jobs, including at a home for blind children (her secretary was a young Stephen G Cleveland, who, as Grover Cleveland, became US President many years later). When she was past 60 years old she began to write poetry and hymn lyrics. By the time she died, into her 90s, she wrote more than 8000 poems and hymns. Many of them are in every denomination’s hymnals today.

This remarkable lady could not stop telling – and wanting to be told – the Story of Jesus. Now we tell her story, an inspiration to us all.

Katherine Hankey was a rough contemporary of Fanny Crosby but lived in England, where she was a follower of William Wilberforce, active in anti-slavery crusades. Unlike Fanny, she was born into a wealthy family, and similarly preached on street corners; but she too was afflicted, not losing her sight but her strength. Doctors eventually confined her to bed and she was distraught that she could not share Jesus on city streets and docksides. Eventually, before she died, groups of visitors appeared at her house to hear her messages.

Emblems of their faith, Fanny wrote the classic song Tell Me the Story of Jesus; and Kate wrote the memorable I Love To Tell the Story. Now we tell their stories as well as Jesus’s: different ways to share His love and how He works in our lives.

Is there a story you can tell that you would change your life to do? Would you risk health and doctors’ orders to tell strangers, maybe for their first times, the Story of Jesus? Is there anything in your life important enough that you would re-tell… 8000 times?

“Two-way streets.” As we tell God’s Story – I should say His many Stories – He rejoices in us! And He will tell our stories, as we do here, to the host of Heaven. And He rejoices not only in what we say or share, but who we are, what we have become. And isn’t that humbling? You and I, as chapters and verses in the Story, “the greatest that ever was told.”

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Click: Tell Me the Story of Jesus / I Love to Tell the Story

5-20-24

One of my daughters was very young when my father died. On hearing the news, she cried, “Oh, no! I never had the chance to tell him about Jesus!” Her beautiful naïveté illustrated a proper priority of love (and was misplaced, for he knew the Lord) yet her childlike expression taught me a lesson.

We always have the chance to share, or say, or do the important things. How often in life, however, do we take the chances?

My friend Christine Martin, a beautiful poet and writer and singer, has addressed this topic, and she is our Guest today:

Recently our pastor talked about having boldness to talk about God to others. He mentioned how easy it is for us to talk about the weather or politics or anything else, really, but how hard we make talking about God. It shouldn’t be that way. God literally saved our lives and we should be overflowing with gratitude, and want to share that with others.

I too struggle to talk about God sometimes. It can seem awkward or scary. We often talk ourselves out of it by thinking we might turn people away from God or say the wrong thing. This is the devil playing with our minds! When we talk about God, He gives us the right words to say. We do not need to worry about this. Our pastor encouraged us to pray about an opportunity to talk about God to someone; and he encouraged us to be bold.

I prayed for such an opportunity. Recently, locksmiths came to fix our doors, and were here for nearly three and a half hours. During this time I prayed that God would help me speak up about Him.

I had to make muffins for a get-together and although I didn’t need to make them in the morning, I decided to go ahead and make them so that I could offer some to the locksmiths. Maybe this could be a great way to talk about God…. All the while, I was praying that God would help me to be bold and say something about Him. Well, they left and I went to the window thinking maybe I could still go out and say something, but I saw that they were already in their van.

I said to myself, “Christine, you blew it.” Then I prayed, “God, please let them have forgotten a tool or something so they will come back and I can talk about You.” I glanced around the room to see if they maybe forgot a tool but I didn’t see anything. A split-second later, there was a knock on the front door. They were back!

God had answered my prayer and I was so excited and thankful and surprised at how quickly He answered and at how He answered. I opened the door and the locksmith was holding the key ring from my old house key. They had made me new keys and the old one didn’t work anymore and he asked if I wanted my old key ring. God gave me the courage to say, “Yes, thank you. By the way, if you like good food (since they loved the muffins) and music, our church is having a 5th Sunday potluck…” And that was the beginning of our Church conversation.

The man was interested and said that he and his mom were looking for a church. I was able to give him a card to our church with the address, and shared with him how welcoming they are and how they have really been a blessing to my husband Daniel and me. When he left with the card and I closed my door, I was so full of joy and thanked God for answering my prayer and giving me the boldness to open my mouth and talk about Him.

When we ask God for opportunities, He gives them to us, and when we ask God for the right words to say, He gives them to us. I have been discouraged as of late. You know, sometimes we get caught up in thinking that God isn’t hearing us or has forgotten about us. It just isn’t true. God hadn’t forgotten me and He was listening. He showed me that by answering my prayer in such a neat way. You will be amazed at the ways God works through you and in your life. Oh, what joy it is to serve a living God who is always at work!

I put my new house key on that old key ring, so that when I see it or hold it in my hand, I can remember that God answers our prayers, that He is still at work, that He has not forgotten me; and that He will give me boldness to talk about Him. What a great reminder. Who would ever have guessed?

God works in mysterious ways and He can use something as simple as a key ring to remind us of so much, to encourage us, and to open that door… to plant a seed in someone’s heart.

Thank you, Christine. I have another friend, Gordon Pennington, who is so gifted (and so prolific in exercising) the sharing of Jesus with strangers, that I have encouraged him to write a book – a “user’s manual” for witnessing to people. A “How-To” book can be useful, but as Christine has shown us, we always have opportunities… and God will set the stage and write the script for us!

(By the way, you may be encouraged, and follow Christine’s thoughts, through her website Tea Cups and Roses)

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Click: A Beautiful Bystander

5-13-24

The origin of the word “holiday” is “holy day,” which, once upon a time before used-car sales and peoples’ desires for three-day weekends, virtually were synonymous.

Vestiges of holiness have been stripped from commemorations, and lately even the names of observances have been neutered. It is a symptom of the Strange New World we live in, where “BC” (“before Christ”) has been de-personalized as “BCE,” Before His Era. Where Thanksgiving, in schools, has been stripped of giving thanks and replaced with noticing a “harvest” (even in districts where a farm is an abstract concept). Where college entrance-exams are no longer really tests; where urban crime rates go down because crimes are, simply, not called crimes any more; where Bible passages are labeled as hate speech by the government.

Christianity is not always the victim of such sea-changes in contemporary life. Not when Christianity itself sometimes is in the forefront!

Note: I am not referring to denominations. Like the United Methodist Church, recently in the news for encouraging homosexual ordination and blessing of homosexual “marriage.” Nor churches that deny the Virgin Birth or Divinity of Christ. Nor the Catholic Church’s tolerance of its most prominent member, the president of the United States, who frequently and aggressively advocates for the abortion of unborn children.

Those matters aside, I note with particularity how large swaths of the contemporary church has sublimated aspects of essential Christian doctrine. I attended a church service recently on Pentecost Sunday where the entire sermon on the Holy Spirit mentioned the Gifts of the Spirit only once, and then not with reference to them as… well, God’s spiritual gifts offered to us for edification and power and service. The latest monthly magazine of a church I attend was devoted to the Gifts of the Spirit… and addressed not one paragraph to the Gifts described in Acts and listed in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

These sins of omission are endemic to many contemporary denominations. Instead of a Triune God, do Christians today prefer to worship a Diune God?

Another example, actually dispositive, is the Church “calendar” as it largely is regarded these days. It is a symptom of contemporary theology, and represents a deficient view of Christ and Who He really is; how He is regarded by His people.

Returning to “holy days” and what they once said to us, in effect –

The Annunciation once was a major observance in the church, calling us to remember how the Holy Spirit told Mary she was with Child;

Christmas marked the fulfillment of uncountable prophesies, and reminds us of God becoming incarnate, dwelling in human form;

Palm Sunday once was a festival, symbolically marking the entrance of Jesus as He should be welcomed – into our hearts;

Good Friday was “God’s Friday” or “good” because God’s Son was made a sacrifice for our sins and spared us the punishment we deserve;

Easter was the recognition that Christ overcame death, and the promise that we may do so likewise, when accepting Him as Lord;

Pentecost was the “birthday of the Church,” when the Holy Spirit, foretold in prophecy and promised by Jesus, came to live in our hearts, imbuing wisdom and power.

That’s it, right? The Gospel story in one bundle of holidays? No. Actually, far from it. All of those sacred days are worthy of commemoration. Essential to our understanding of God’s plan for humankind. Vital to our faith. However, as Holy (indeed) as they are, they all lack one final piece of the Gospel puzzle, so to speak.

Mary, bearing Jesus, beheld a miracle.

The birth of Jesus, God-with-us, was a miracle and blessing.

That Jesus can enter our hearts, like He entered Jerusalem, was a miracle and blessing and opportunity.

Jesus’s betrayal and crucifixion and death on Good Friday was a miracle and a blessing and an opportunity and a call to repentance.

The Resurrection of Jesus on Easter was a miracle and a blessing and an opportunity and a call to repentance and a promise of New Life.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit was a miracle and a blessing and an opportunity and a call to repentance and a promise of New Life and a Gift from God.

… but none of these fully confirmed the Deity of Jesus. That only happened on the next Holy Day on the Church Calendar: the observance of the Ascension. This commemorates when Jesus bodily rose Heaven in the presence of Old Testament saints and His Disciples.

Yes, we know that God proclaimed “This is My beloved Son,” and we know of many miracles performed, many supernatural acts and Godly wisdom He dispensed. Signs and wonders. But on Ascension Day, Jesus again became one with the Father.

In some traditional and Orthodox faiths, Ascension Day is still observed as a major Holy Day. In some European countries, lip service (at least) is paid to the Day of Ascension, and it is a holiday from work and schools. I wonder, in most American churches, how many worshipers know when or what it is. We ought to. Without the Cross, and the Resurrection – and the Ascension – our faith is in vain.

Do you know the Jesus of the holidays or the Jesus of the Holy Days?

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Click: Holy, Holy, Holy

5-6-24

There are many things we know about God. Thank God (awkward phrase here!) that He has made Himself known in many ways. And because of Scripture and prophets and revelation there are also many things we understand, a different thing than knowing, about Him and His ways and His will for our lives.

Yet. There are uncountable things we do not know about God, and will never understand.

Never? Actually, yes. Even in Heaven we will not know everything about God and His ways. The angels do not: if they knew what He knows, if they could (for instance) see what God sees, and be where He is at all times, they would be as God. And they are not. This is one reason, despite our inclinations and superstitions, we should not pray to angels or saints or departed loved ones. Thank God, again, we can approach the Father’s throne directly, in Jesus’s name, praying to God.

Speaking of Jesus, we have a similar situation – knowing a lot about Him, His ministry, His purposes as Savior. But have you ever wondered about the things we don’t know about Him?

I have a new friend who cites the documentary record of Jesus’s life and ministry; and implies that since accounts were recorded after Jesus walked on earth, the Bible is unreliable. I would file these arguments under “I” for “Irrelevant,” because they deny that a sovereign God can work through inspiration; and they ignore the “harmony of the Gospels”: factors of time and space were overcome, and a multitude of prophesies – for instance myriad details in Isaiah’s Chapter 53, written 700 years before Christ was incarnate – were fulfilled in precise details.

But do you wonder? We know little about His childhood, for instance. The Bible says virtually nothing of Jesus’s life up to His thirty-third year. Arguably, His real “story” began when He was baptized in the Holy Spirit by John. That is when we have the accounts of His ministry, preaching, miracles, teaching, signs and wonders; and of His persecution, betrayal, suffering, death, and resurrection.

Why? God knows, to coin another phrase. We might have questions, and I believe God wants us to ask questions… to speculate on His ways… to dig deeper into spiritual matters, for ourselves. For example, we are told that Jesus was writing in the dust when the adulterous woman was brought before Him, to trap Him if He might answer contrary to Levitical or Mosaic laws. What is the point of telling us that He was writing in the dust… and not sharing what He was doodling? My guess – and I have to imagine the Mind of God to make this guess – is that the Lord might have been writing the numbers One to Ten. Why? It would have been a form of “prior restraint,” challenging those in the mob to consider which Commandments they broke before condemning a woman for a Commandment she broke…

Another “missing” set of events is What did Jesus do, really, in those 40 days between His rising from the dead and leaving the tomb, and physically Ascending to Heaven? Yes, we are told in the Book of Acts that He preached, and that many witnessed Him. But… we are not told what He preached. Or what miracles He performed. We have a few accounts of His miraculous appearing to the Disciples, His showing evidence of His wounds, some of His words…

But other than the “holy tease” (if I may so call it) that “the books of the world could not hold” all the accounts of those 40 days… we are not told much. (Soon afterward, historians like Josephus would; and church fathers like Eusebius would.) That book of the Bible, remember, is about the Acts of the Apostles, not of Jesus at that point.

So we are left again with what I am quite happy to accept as God’s invitation to speculate. I find great wisdom and comfort in the Gospel song “God Walks the Dark Hills.” You see, the Risen Jesus surely taught and preached and healed. We know that crowds gathered. Many marveled. Many came to believe in Him.

But I have a picture in my mind that, between His “events” like preaching and healing – maybe when crowds dispersed, when folks around Jerusalem slept – Jesus walked the dark hills.

Maybe He sought out individuals, not crowds. Maybe He ministered to the lonely, not only the curious. Maybe, while some people looked for Him… He looked for others.

That would be very much like the Jesus I know, because He still does that. Oh, we have to seek Him, to desire to meet Him, to want His presence. But, time after time, we will find that Jesus is already “there.” He has been waiting for us; actually, He is on His way to find us. He walks the dark hills, the ways and the byways. He walks in fields and meadows, by night and by day, in rain and sunshine. Through our joys and in our own Gardens of Gethsemane. In hard times and harder times. He’s seeking you out.

He still walks the dark hills, because He loves you and me.

This is what the high and majestic One says, the One who fills the eternal realm with glory, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in high and holy places, but also with the bruised and lowly in spirit, those who are humble and quick to repent. I dwell with them to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the heart of those who are broken over their sin.” – Isaiah 57:15

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Click: God Walks the Dark Hills