did charles wesley ever drive across I-80?

O, for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise
The glories of my God and King
The triumphs of His grace

My gracious Master and my God
Assist me to proclaim
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honors of Thy name

So come on and sing out
Let our anthem grow loud
There is one great love Jesus

Jesus, the name that charms our fears
That bids our sorrows cease
‘Tis music in the sinner’s ears
‘Tis life and health and peace

He breaks the power of cancelled sin
He sets the prisoners free
His blood can make the foulest clean
His blood availed for me

He speaks and listening to His voice
New life the dead receive
The mournful broken hearts rejoice
The humble poor believe

Glory to God and praise and love
Be ever, ever giv’n
By saints below and saints above
The church in earth and Heav’n

There are so few words
That never grow old
There are so few words
That never grow old
Jesus

crowder was singing it on the cd and it sure seemed appropriate as we were driving into the setting sun on saturday night. what a glorious sight! a book i was recently reading talks about how dogs have trouble understanding when we point at things. they tend to want to check out our hands rather than looking at what we are really pointing to. may i never miss to WHOM the beauty in creation points: the heavens declare the glory of GOD. i praise Him for the setting sun and the orange sky... for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. to Him be the glory forever!

what's it really all about?

when asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus' reply was "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. the second is this: love your neighbor as yourself. there is no other commandment greater than these."

this can be seen as a definition of the well ordered life AND the well ordered ministry. sin, however, gets this proper order all jumbled. instead of loving God and loving others, too often, i love me and then me. i need constant reminding that it's not about me.

so what more explosive reminder can there be than to have the cake cutting at my birthday party (a celebration of me) interrupted by a phone call from a friend to tell me that he is dying? praise God! it's all about HIM! (and the lives that He allows me to touch springing from the reality of who He is.) i am reminded of a quote that struck me as we were studying ch. 9 of "don't waste your life" the other day:

"if your aim is to love people, you will lay down your life to make them eternally glad in God. and if your aim is to glorify Christ, you will also lay down your life to make people eternally happy in God... any good-hearted goal, without the desire to give people eternal joy in God, is condemnation with a kind face."

life is short - sometimes even shorter than we expect. thank You God for the privilege of serving You - for being the One Hope in my life - help me to love You more and to lay down my life pointing others to You!

i'm no franklin d...

on a national scale, december 7, is the day that lives in infamy, but on a more personal level that day'd be march 28. it is the day in 1986 when i lost my appendix, and more importantly, the day in 2002 when i lost my grandmother.

i was reminded again on sunday just how good God is and how well He works everything out. the Easter message was from 1 corinthians 15: the resurrection - Christ's and ours - our hope.

march 27, 2002 was maggie's birthday, and rachel and i finished off memorizing 1 corinthians 15 - leaving us one chapter to do before nationals. little did i realize the comfort that passage would bring to me over the course of the next several days - even becoming the passage that i would use to preach on at gram's funeral.

2 timothy 1:5 talks about timothy's faith being passed down from his mother and grandmother. i can sure identify with him. my grandmother was my best friend, and the one who would teach me the Scriptures - from the basic truths as a little boy to helping me memorize for quizzing all the way through my high school years. my mom is the one who had devotions with us as kids and who would walk the pastures listening to me quote.

today, my passion remains to help kids learn Scripture, and gram is more than just a little bit responsible for that. because she took the time with me, i was memorizing with rachel that day, and today justin and i finished ephesians 3. what a blessing to have interaction with God's life transforming Word and young people. (more on that subject in my latest newsletter).

oh, and to reinforce the idea of hope in resurrection... check out the song victory by some guys who i know that have a band called zimri... (i've been singing it ever since sunday - but this wasn't quite how the pastor sounded ;))

maundy

yeah, so the "haha, is it monday OR thursday?" joke gets old. but when mike and i were talking about it yesterday, we couldn't come up with a good answer... like we know what Maundy Thursday is, but not necessarily where the name comes from. soooooooo, i turned to my old friend(ok, so we've only really been friends for maybe two years), wikipedia for an answer.

well, it turns out that it comes from the first word of the latin phrase, "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos." if you are like me, that means nothing to you. BUT when you realize that that latin phrase is john 13:34, which Jesus spoke to His disciples at the last supper right after judas had gone out, it seems to be a little more important. AND when we see it in english (for those of us who read and understand that language), it makes a lot more sense:

"a new commandment i give to you, that you love one another: just as i have loved you, you also are to love one another. by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." john 13:34-35

so tonight, as we celebrate the Lord Jesus - His washing of His disciples' feet, His celebration of the Passover with His disciples, His body and His blood given for us - may we consider anew the fact that we have no life apart from Christ AND that by participation in His body (His life within us), we become a part of His body - the church - and may we also celebrate and love each other as a demonstration of Christ's life.

those are big thoughts - i'm blown away to consider them. i may and or may not be expressing them entirely, thoroughly, but i wanted to get them down while they are there... i'll probably come back and edit some after further meditation, but i hope that as they are they can be a blessing to you.

oh, and on the theme theme... what did my Bible reading plan have for me today? (remembering that it skips around throughout the week and that i am nowhere near on track with the exact day of reading) - 2 chronicles 30! (lol - "big deal" you say) - well, yeah, cause it's about hezekiah reinstituting the observance of the passover!

brothers in arms

unless you have woken at 4 AM to discover a squirrel sitting on your knee as you lie in your bed, you will probably not completely understand the connection that i have recently discovered with david crowder and the swedish chef. i have always (ok, not always, but for the length of my association with the knowledge of them) considered them geniuses and incredibly funny, but i now realize that it goes FAR DEEPER...







disclaimers:

• crowder and i do differ on the dr. pepper... (it makes me puke just to swallow it - i guess you could call that an aversion)
• at pirate games, when they do the intro... we like to yell, "there be squirrels ahead!"
• i do get along with one squirrel:

"have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they produce" sq... er, "quarrels." 2 timothy 2:23

slick shoes!

as mike and i were walking out of the pittsburgh youth network meeting last week, i said to him, "i think i'm in a slick shoes mood." so i popped the biggest and the best into the player and it's been steady there for the last week. who would have known that last saturday was their first show in their reunited state? and that you can find vids from it on youtube? (i had heard a while back that the original members were getting back together - i guess now's the time) :) (oh, and you'll have to trust me, but i can sing along better on "for better or for worse" than the crowd at that show)



the songs? fall & for better or for worse:

"fall"

Lord I'm distracted by so many things of the world. My eyes always stray from you, but you are always watching over me. I don't know how you could stand having me as your son. I'm always so selfish and you are always so kind. Lord, you're always there for me. Without you I don't know what I would do. You're always there for me, without you I don't know what I would do. When everything is going well I rarely stop and thank you. But, when nothing is going right I stop and complain to you. Don't let me fall.

"for better or for worse"

Sitting alone, in the rain, one day you came and sat by me. When I looked up, you just smiled and said hello and I saw your pretty face. I never knew what it would be. I never knew you'd care for me. When I think of how it's changed, for better or worse, we'll have to see. All those times you looked at me that way. And I know everything will be o.k. Thinking of your smile, it hurts to see you cry. All those times that you were sad, you never told me why. I know that we are still growing, not knowing what's to come. But only God knows what He has in store for us.

...oh yeah, and remember that they got their name from this kid's line in the goonies?

thematic progressions

i don't know if you're like me, but it sure seems that things or ideas pop up in my life in various places in groupings. hmmmm - that may be the most confusing sentence ever written, so allow me to explain: when i learn about subject 'a' in place 1, the chances are that i will also hear about subject 'a' in place 2 and sometimes even place 3 or place 4. now, it could be that i notice these things because that is how my brain works - analytically in groupings and comparisons OR because the Lord knows that i need repetition to really get His point - like, yesterday's theme was saul/paul's conversion, which came up in three totally separate instances...

well, today's theme is what i've chosen to write about: grace. one of the websites i usually check out semi regularly is decapolis (as well as espn, bbc africa, desiring God, the pirates, only bucs forum and manchild insider) (oh, and i guess jjhuddle during high school football season and cbd when i'm looking for a book). ANYWAY, today on decapolis, they had a link to the new video by the almost. when i saw it, i remembered that the lead singer was in underOath as well, but i couldn't remember his name... so i headed to wikipedia (or the W as david crowder refers to it - i guess i go there quite a bit, too).

well, after reading the article (and remembering that his name is aaron gilespie), i went to their myspace page to listen to the song "say this sooner" which i was trying to remember if i'd heard. i wound up also listening to the song "amazing, because it is" which was seeming really catchy. then it bursts into the words from "amazing grace," and the title just totally made sense. haha - we sing AMAZING grace, because God's grace IS amazing! He saved a WRETCH like me...

so then i went to my Bible reading for the day - james 4 - and it was talking about our sinfulness and worldliness and how "friendship with the world is enmity with God." the turning point? verse 6 "but he gives us more grace."!!!!! to the humble... to those who recognize their hopeless, desperate, needy situation.

then today's prayer for the quiz team - from ephesians 3 - that "out of his GLORIOUS RICHES he would strengthen you" - and i was reminded of studying chapter 1 yesterday and remembered that those "glorious riches" are the "riches of God's grace." (eph. 1:6-8)

praise God - His grace IS amazing and i am desperately in need of it!



...sistrina - i think this is a sufficient number of links.... jenn franks - this covers the whole question of a song that sums me up right now ;)