Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The kindling of the heaven descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.
(from Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart by George Croly)
Tag: worship art
This Love
This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive.
It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.
It is not touchy.
It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything.
It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.
(1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 Phillips)
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Undivided, I’ll Worship
Train me, God, to walk straight;
then I’ll follow your true path.
Put me together, one heart and mind;
then, undivided, I’ll worship in joyful fear.
From the bottom of my heart I thank you, dear Lord;
I’ve never kept secret what you’re up to.
You’ve always been great toward me—what love!
You snatched me from the brink of disaster!
God, these bullies have reared their heads!
A gang of thugs is after me—
and they don’t care a thing about you.
But you, O God, are both tender and kind,
not easily angered, immense in love,
and you never, never quit.
(Psalm 86:11-15 The Message)
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Nevertheless
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 KJV)
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4)
I don’t quote from the King James version very often, although it is the translation I grew up with. I find I end up having to explain it to people not familiar with archaic English anyway, so I might as well use a later version provided by scholars who have dedicated themselves to the task. But there is a dramatic poetry in the old language I sometimes miss.
Nevertheless…
Nevertheless I live.
Words that rock the world no matter the century or the dialect.
Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.
How deeply profound.
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We Don’t Hass to be Afraid
Don’t be afraid, I am with you;
don’t give way, for I am your God.
I strengthen you and I help you;
I uphold you with the right hand
of my justice. (Isaiah 41:10)
Don’t be afraid,
for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by your name,
you are mine. (Isaiah 43:1)
When he was only two years old and his daddy appeared to be dying in the hospital our little grandson looked into his Mommy’s eyes and said, “We don’t hass to be afraid. We don’t hass to be afraid, Momma, ’cause Jesus is wiss us!”
Sometimes when I look at all the things in my character that need fixing I feel overwhelmed. The word I feel the Lord has given me for this year is “instill.” I want the concepts I have learned about the goodness of God and how much he loves me to be instilled in my heart so my first reaction is trust. I get there eventually but my “knee-jerk reactions” need revision before I open my mouth. When I wonder how long it will take I remember the reaction of a child barely old enough to talk.
Sometimes this journey is not as much about overcoming obstacles as returning to the faith of a child. Restoration is recovering the pure undivided heart of a little one who knows what it is to trust.
Yesterday my grandson’s Daddy taught him how to skate. He learned to balance and glide and turn on the ice rink Daddy built for his children in the backyard. There was much joy!
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Enter In
The teacher asked us to reflect on what “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” means to us, then paint it.
This is not a detailed work of art. It’s a quick painting done during an evening of worship. As I thought about her question, this image is what came to mind.
I understand “repent” to mean change thought and direction.
The cross of Christ is the intersection where time and the eternal, and the physical and supernatural meet.
Jesus has broken every barrier down and his grace gives us the ability to change direction.
We enter everything God has for us — the Kingdom — through the cross.
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Eternity in Our Hearts
Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.
(Ecc. 3:11 NLT)
Dad was holding Mom’s hand when she died. He looked up from his book and saw an expression of joyful excitement on her face like she had just seen someone important come into the room. He looked in the direction of her gaze, but no one was there. Then he realized she was gone.
A few hundred kilometers away, at the same time, her daughter had been crying out to God, asking him to heal her mother and relieve her of her suffering.
He did.
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The Conductor
Sing a new song to the Eternal;
sing in one voice to the Eternal, all the earth.
Sing to the Eternal of all the good things He’s done.
Psalm 96 (The Voice)
I think the ultimate instrument is the voice.
I love a lot of contemporary solo music as well as the classics. It touches my soul so often and songs play back in my head in the night. Music carries messages that comfort and challenge and lift my soul. Something marvelous happens in corporate worship when voices singing together are not drowned out by amplified instruments and a singer with a microphone.
People talk about singing a new song and a new sound arising. I wonder if the new sound is an old sound we have forgotten? The Bible speaks of God singing over us and of us responding to Him with song when we realize that He really does love us.
There is something in choral music that speaks of unity in the Spirit. How I long to hear the entire family of God joining their voices in praise to the Creator.
Sometimes, in the night, I do.
And the angels join in.
Charis: Subject to Change 