Rajesh

Holy Father, Hear Us Now

March 16, 2013

I wrote this song today for my younger guitar students who speak English. Like Padre santo, por favor, it is sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

1. Holy Father, hear us now;
By Your Spirit, teach us how,
We should love You day by day;
Hear and do all that You say.
Holy Father, hear us now;
By Your Spirit, teach us how.

2. Holy Father, grace us now;
In Your mercy, show us how,
We should hear, obey, and pray;
Honor You in what we say.
Holy Father, grace us now;
in Your mercy, show us how.

3. Holy Father, fill us now,
With Your Spirit, as we bow.
We would live for You each day;
Be more like Christ ev’ry day.
Holy Father, fill us now,
With Your Spirit, as we bow.

You may use this song in a ministry context provided you do not change any of the words and you provide copyright information to anyone whom you distribute it. Please contact me for any other use of the song.

In Music, Prayer

Padre santo, por favor

March 13, 2013

To provide my younger Spanish guitar students with another song with solid biblical teaching, I recently wrote new words to be sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. So far, it seems that my students have liked the song.

I praise God for directing me to write the words of this song that is a prayer to each member of the Godhead to fill us with His love because He is God and the Lord and because His great love is matchless!

1. Padre santo, por favor,
llénanos hoy con tu amor.
Eres Dios y el Señor,
sin par es tu gran amor.
Padre santo, por favor,
llénanos hoy con tu amor.

2. Jesucristo, por favor,
llénanos hoy con tu amor.
Eres Dios y el Señor,
sin par es tu gran amor.
Jesucristo, por favor,
llénanos hoy con tu amor.

3. Consolador, por favor,
llénanos hoy con tu amor.
Eres Dios y el Señor,
sin par es tu gran amor.
Consolador, por favor,
llénanos hoy con tu amor.

You may use this song in a ministry context provided you do not change any of the words and you provide copyright information to anyone whom you distribute it to. Please contact me for any other use of the song.

In Music, Prayer, Spanish

Excellent Cello CD

March 10, 2013

I love to hear good cello music! At work, I have had the privilege of listening multiple times to an excellent cello CD, Selah. If you like sacred music played on the cello accompanied by the piano, this would be a great CD to get. Here is more information about the CD from the Majesty Music website:

Selah, an expression used frequently in the Psalms is a term indicating musical direction or a musical pause. These beautifully arranged piano and cello meditations invite listeners to pause and reflect on God’s love and blessings.

16 Selections include: What Wondrous Love • I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say • Jesus, Lover of My Soul • Poor Wayfaring Stranger • More Love to Thee • When This Passing World Is Done • Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing • Give Me Jesus • My Song Is Love Unknown • Amazing Grace • I Will Arise and Go to Jesus • Abide With Me • Of the Father’s Love Begotten • I Love Thee, Lord Jesus • Be Still, My Soul • O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

You can listen to several selections from the CD here.

In Music

The Wilds Songbook: Eight Edition

March 9, 2013

THE WILDS Christian Association, Inc. has updated their songbook to make this excellent music resource even better. The Eight Edition includes the following:

MANY NEW SONGS

The book now has 221 songs (23 more than the seventh edition), including 64 public domain songs. Many good new songs have been added; one of my favorite ones is By the Gentle Waters.

FULLER INFORMATION ABOUT THE GUITAR CHORDS IN THE SONGS

Each song includes the guitar chords, including many songs with a much fuller indication of what chords to play to make the song sound even better than when it is played with just the basic chords!

A new notation that shows what chords are optional in the songs helps less advanced guitar students know what chords they can omit to make the song easier for them to play.

The fuller chord information allows greater variety when playing the song because the guitarist can vary between playing all the chords on certain stanzas and omitting the optional ones on others.

Songs that are in difficult keys for guitarists are much easier to play than they would be otherwise because they have information about where to put the capo and what chords to play the song in for the easier key.

EXPANDED CHORD CHARTS

The Standard Guitar Chords chart provides diagrams for 63 basic chords arranged alphabetically in rows by key, from A to G (9 in each key – Major, Sus, Sus9, Aug, Sixth, Seventh, Major Seventh, Minor, and Minor Seventh). Additional information with the chart explains the choice for including Sus9 chord diagrams in this edition in place of Sus2 chord diagrams in the previous edition.

The Diminished Chords chart shows the same chords as before but now also has a helpful explanation about how they have been notated consistently in the book “to simplify your chord usage.”

The Additional Guitar Chords provides diagrams for many more chords than the previous addition did (170 versus 114)!

SONG INDEX

The book ends with a comprehensive alphabetical index of the songs. Comparing this index with the one for the seventh edition readily shows that many new songs have been added and some have been removed, which makes it valuable to have and use both editions.

PROVEN VALUE

I have been using the Wilds Songbooks with nearly all of my private students for many years. My students have really liked using these books!

Recently, I began using the Eighth Edition as one of the main books for some of my students in a class in a local church. I highly recommend it for all guitarists who like to play Christian music!

In Christian Books, Music

Christian Health/Fitness Quotes II

March 7, 2013

1. Robert Burton on the lack of exercise:

Opposite to exercise is idleness . . . or want of exercise, the bane of the body and mind . . . the chiefe author of all mischiefe, one of the seven deadly sinnes.

—The Anatomy of Melancholy, 242

2. R. Jaeggli on Proverbs 31:17 -“She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms”:

This woman is no couch potato. In order to achieve all the activity she has planned, she knows that she must be in peak condition. In addition to developing strength, also she has trained herself in special abilities.

—Biblical Viewpoint, 11/01, 8

3. Charles Bridges on slavery to carnal appetites:

If the unsaved Seneca could say, ‘I am greater and born to greater things, than to be the servant of my body’ – is it not a shame for a Christian, born as he is, the heir of an everlasting crown, to be the slave of his carnal appetites?

—A Modern Study in the Book of Proverbs, 502

4. Jerry Bridges on the lack of holiness in body:

Twentieth-century Christians, especially those in the Western world, have generally been wanting in the area of holiness of the body. . . . Quite possibly there is no greater conformity to the world among evangelical Christians today than the way in which we, instead of presenting our bodies as holy sacrifices, pamper and indulge them in defiance of our better judgment and our Christian purpose in life.

—The Pursuit of Holiness, 110-112

5. J. Oswald Sanders on the importance of bodily discipline:

Paul believed he could be disqualified not merely because of errors of doctrine or misjudgments of ethics, but because of the body’s passions. Paul worked toward mastering the body’s appetites through disciplined moderation – neither asceticism on the one hand (such as causing oneself harm by denial of basic needs) or self-indulgence on the other (losing strength through careless diet, for example).

—Spiritual Leadership, 160

6. Richard S. Taylor on self-indulgence and character:

The person who is habitually self-indulgent in eating and drinking, without regard to health or need, almost as if he lived to eat rather than ate to live, is very apt to be weak and exposed in other phases of his life. Flabbiness in one area of character tends to loose the whole.

—The Disciplined Life, 92

7. E. Fitzpatrick on losing weight in a way that glorifies God:

Godly motivation and sacrificial living must be at the core of any spiritual discipline program, or it is doomed to failure. The failure isn’t only in not losing weight; even if weight is lost, if it is done for self-centered reasons, the fruit of this action will not be eternal or bring glory to God.

—Uncommon Vessels: A Program for Developing Godly Eating Habits, 10

8. William & Colleen Dedrick on hygiene and cleanliness:

When we care for our bodies with nourishment or good hygiene, we prevent disease and preserve life. We must love our families and neighbors enough not to bring sickness and disease on them.

—The Little Book of Christian Character & Manners, 82

See also my post Christian Health/Fitness Quotes I

In Discipleship, Health, Quotes

What If Almost $6,000,000 Worth of Books Were Burned at One Time Today?

March 5, 2013

Acts 19 records an occasion when people who became Christians showed their genuine repentance in a remarkable way:

Act 19:18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

¹⁹ Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.

²⁰ So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

To put these numbers into some perspective, consider that one of the pieces of silver mentioned in this account was worth roughly “a day’s wages.”[1] According to the US Social Security Administration, “the national average wage index for 2011 [was] [$]42,979.61” (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html; accessed March 5, 2013). This works out to an average US daily salary of $117.75.

For books to be burnt today that roughly would be worth the equivalent of what was burned in the account recorded in Acts 19, people would burn $5,887,617.81 worth of books ($117.75 x 50,000)! Such a public display of true repentance would be an amazing testimony of the power of God’s word.

Although I did not do so publicly, after I was saved, God led me to destroy a large amount of ungodly music items that I had accumulated over more than two decades. I have no way of knowing what the total value of that material was, but I am sure that it was worth a fair amount of money.

If you profess to be a Christian, have you truly repented by ridding your life of any ungodly material possessions that you may have had over the years that were a vital part of your past sinful ways?

May God grant us all the grace to do whatever we may need to do in this respect in our lives today.

[1] “A drachma was a silver coin worth about a day’s wages.” (Footnote in The Comparative Study Bible, 2831)

In Exhortation, Testimony

A New Song for Children

March 2, 2013

I recently wrote new words to be sung to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat, a well-known children’s song. My song, Sow, Sow, Sow the Word, teaches children numerous truths that have great significance for this life and the one to come.

I have included footnotes in each stanza that give Scripture passages for the major ideas in the song. Explaining these biblical truths to children when you teach them the song should make their singing it much more profitable.

Sow, Sow, Sow the Word

Sow, sow, sow the Word
Ev’rywhere you go.[1]
Joyfully, joyfully, joyfully, joyfully[2]
Tell men what you know.

Sow, sow, sow the Word
Ev’ryone must hear.[3]
Solemnly, solemnly, solemnly, solemnly[4]
Tell them Whom to fear.[5]

Sow, sow, sow the Word
Ev’ry day and night.[6]
Thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly
Teach them all that’s right.[7]

Sow, sow, sow the Word
Ev’ry child of God.
Patiently, patiently, patiently, patiently[8]
Turn men back to God.[9]

Sow, sow, sow the Word
You who know God’s love.
Lovingly, lovingly, lovingly, lovingly[10]
Show that God is love.[11]

[1] Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Acts 8:4; 26:20

[2] Acts 5:41-42; 13:52

[3] Mark 16:15

[4] Acts 20:21

[5] Revelation 14:6-7

[6] Acts 20:31

[7] Matthew 28:20

[8] 2 Timothy 2:25-26

[9] Acts 26:18

[10] 1 Corinthians 13:1; Ephesians 4:15

[11] Matthew 5:16

In Discipleship, Music

New Book by Shelly Hamilton about CCM

March 1, 2013

I have worked with Shelly Hamilton at Majesty Music for a number of years now. For the past many months, I have had the privilege of interacting with her extensively as she worked to complete the writing of a book about CCM.

Shelly has researched this subject carefully for many years. Her musical giftedness, solid Christian training, dedication to serving Christ, and gracious desire and intense burden to help people with this difficult subject have uniquely prepared her for advancing the kingdom of God and His righteousness through her book Why I Dont Listen to Contemporary Christian Music.

In the 103 pages of this book, Shelly covers many key topics, including Is Music Neutral?; The Rock Beat; The Pop Singing Style; Intent and Motive; Biblical Teaching about Music; Rock by Its Fruit and Association; A Musical Line; The Power of Music in the Church; and What Are a Christian’s Musical Options?

If you are looking for some solid help to discern answers to the musical and biblical issues that CCM poses for believers, I heartily recommend that you give this work a careful hearing.

For more help with issues concerning CCM, please see my post Resources That Provide Answers to Key Issues Concerning CCM

In CCM, Christian Books

Amazing Grace Teaches Wretches to Deny Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts

February 27, 2013

John Newton’s song Amazing Grace highlights how God saves wretches who once were lost in their sins. Stanza 3 testifies of the ongoing work of grace in the life of saved wretches like us: “Thru many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; ‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.”

In our day, much Christian teaching and preaching focuses on the saving work of God’s grace in the sense of its delivering sinners from the penalty of their sins. Although that is certainly a vital dimension of the work of God’s grace for sinners, the apostle Paul emphasizes a key facet of its work that needs much more emphasis than it is currently receiving—God’s grace that saves sinners has a vital sanctifying teaching ministry in the life of every true believer:

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,

¹² Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

¹³ Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

¹⁴ Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

In this passage, Paul stresses that God’s grace teaches believers to be denying ungodliness and worldly lusts as they live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. An examination of this truth brings out vital understanding for how we should live in our day.

GRACE TEACHES BELIEVERS ABOUT THE UNGODLINESS AND WORLDLY LUSTS OF OUR PRESENT WORLD

The teaching of Paul about grace in this passage implies that grace teaches us about the ungodliness and worldly lusts that characterize the present world. We understand then that our age in which we live has evil aspects that are ungodly (not like God) and worldly (opposed to Him, His interests, and the best interests of His people and focused rather on human desires that are either intrinsically evil or are perversions of God-given legitimate desires).

An emphasis that downplays the reality of the ungodly and worldly aspects of the present world thus misleads believers into thinking contrary to what the Scripture teaches about God’s grace. Such teaching comes far short of rightly instructing believers to live the grace-filled lives that God desires for them.

GRACES TEACHES BELIEVERS TO IDENTIFY THE UNGODLINESS AND WORLDLY LUSTS OF OUR AGE

Also implicit in this Pauline teaching about grace is the reality that God’s grace enables believers to identify what is ungodly and worldly in the present world. Apart from that grace, they would be like all the lost people of the world who lack the ability and desire to identify accurately what aspects of our age are ungodly and worldly versus what aspects are not so.

Moreover, because of God’s grace working in their lives, Christians who are right with God desire to discern accurately what comprises the ungodliness and worldly lusts of our contemporary world. Based on these truths, an emphasis on living a grace-filled life that minimizes a believer’s need to discern what comprises the ungodliness and worldly lusts of our world is in direct opposition to explicit Scriptural teaching about what God’s grace effects in a believer’s life.

GRACE TEACHES BELIEVERS TO DENY THE UNGODLINESS AND WORLDLY LUSTS OF OUR WORLD

Beyond enabling believers to identify the ungodliness and worldly lusts of our day and teaching them to do so, God’s grace teaches believers to deny these aspects of our world! We thus do not live the grace-filled lives that God intends if we are not actively denying these things in our lives.

An emphasis on grace-filled living that does not stress a believer’s denying ungodliness and worldly lusts in his living is highly detrimental to the cause of Christ because it misleads believers about an essential facet of how they must live in this world. We must reject such teaching as unscriptural because it is not in accord with biblical teaching about what God’s grace effects in a believer’s life.

Is amazing grace teaching wretches like you and me both to identify the ungodliness and worldly lusts of our present age and to deny them? Or, has deficient teaching about living a grace-filled life misled us so that we are not actively doing so?

In Discipleship, Exposition

O Theophilus, Jesus Will Restore Again the Kingdom to Israel!

February 23, 2013

Together, Luke-Acts comprises a larger portion of the New Testament than do the writings of any other Scripture writer (unless Paul wrote Hebrews). Because Luke wrote both books to the same man, Theophilus (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-2), he has the unique distinction of being the one person to whom the Spirit directed more of the New Testament than He did to any other person.

Luke ends his Gospel with an account of Jesus’ instructing His disciples prior to His Ascension (Luke 24:15-49). He begins Acts by reminding Theophilus of what he had previously written to him, including an explicit reference to Jesus’ instructing them before He ascended: “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen” (Acts 1:1-2; cf. Luke 1:1-4). The explicit references to Jesus’ instructing them before His Ascension (at both the ending of Luke and the beginning of Acts) underscored to Theophilus the importance of that instruction.

JESUS’ FOCUS ON THE KINGDOM PRIOR TO HIS ASCENSION

Luke then related to Theophilus that prior to His ascension to heaven, Jesus appeared repeatedly to His disciples over a 40-day period: “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). This statement communicated to Theophilus that during that entire time, Jesus was speaking to them about the things concerning the kingdom of God. In fact, Luke said that His appearing to them and His speaking to them about precisely that subject were the infallible proofs that He was alive after His passion.

Based on this singular emphasis of Jesus’ communications to His disciples during this 40-day period, Theophilus understood that the preeminent subject in the minds of both Jesus and His disciples during that entire period was the kingdom of God. Keeping this fact in mind is vital for a proper interpretation of the subsequent events.

THE DISCIPLES’ QUESTION ABOUT JESUS’ RESTORING THE KINGDOM TO ISRAEL

Theophilus learned next that Jesus gathered His disciples together and commanded them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit that the Father had promised (Acts 1:4-5). In response to His interactions with them throughout this post-Resurrection, pre-Ascension period and specifically to His specific instructions to wait for the giving of the Spirit, His disciples asked him, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

Noting the earlier emphatic statement about Jesus’ speaking about the kingdom to His disciples (Acts 1:3), Theophilus certainly would have understood this question in relation to that emphasis. He would thus have known that the disciples were not bringing up a matter that was important only to them but not so to Jesus.

JESUS’ ANSWER TO HIS DISCIPLES

Theophilus then read of Jesus’ answer and of His Ascension:

“And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight” (1:7-9).

Clearly, he would have interpreted Jesus’ answer and Ascension from the standpoint of not just the disciples’ question but also from the standpoint of Jesus’ singular emphasis on the kingdom of God throughout that 40-day period. On this reading of Acts 1:1-9, we can only interpret Jesus’ answer properly by seeking to understand it in the same way that Theophilus did.

A “THEOPHILIC” UNDERSTANDING OF THE DISCIPLES’ QUESTION AND JESUS’ ANSWER

To assess rightly how Theophilus understood Acts 1:6-9, we must consider key truths about the kingdom from both Luke and Acts, the two books that Luke wrote specifically to him:

(1) In his Gospel, Luke informed Theophilus that an angel instructed Mary to name Him Jesus before He was even conceived and explained the significance of that naming in a way that can only be rightly understood as pointing to the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (Luke 1:30-33). Theophilus therefore would have believed that Jesus’ sitting on the throne of His father David and ruling forever over the house of Jacob was central to the mission that His name reveals (Luke 1:32-33).

(2) Theophilus learned at the end of Luke that the disciples expected Jesus to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21), which certainly hearkened back to the confident expectation that he had read about of Israel’s national deliverance from those who were oppressing her (cf. Zacharias’ Spirit-filled prophecy that spoke of his thanking God for redeeming and saving him and his people (Israel) from their enemies and from the hand of all those who hated them [Luke 1:68-79]).

(3) Theophilus did not read in Acts 1:7-8 that Jesus told His disciples that they were mistaken in thinking that Israel still has a glorious national future. Nor did he read that Jesus informed them that they were wrong in expecting that He would be the One to bring about the glorious restoration of the kingdom to them.

(4) Instead, what Luke wrote to Theophilus told him that Jesus pointed them to the Father’s sovereignty over the timing of that glorious event and instructed them that they were not to focus at this time on the timing of that event.

Viewing Jesus’ answer to His disciples from this “theophilic” (the consistent focus on the kingdom from Luke 1 to Luke 24 to Acts 1) viewpoint, we should understand that Jesus upheld to them the validity of their expectation but redirected their focus to the present priority of their testifying for Him throughout the world. Doing so, they would faithfully occupy until He would gloriously return to restore the kingdom to Israel, just as He said (implied in Acts 1:6).

WHY THE OPPOSING VIEW IS WRONG

Many deny this understanding of Jesus’ answer because it does not fit with their overall theological understanding of Scripture. They hold that Israel has no national future. As seen above, however, a consideration of how Theophilus, the original recipient of both Luke and Acts, would have understood this matter shows that this view is erroneous.

CONCLUSION

Despite the arguments of those who for theological reasons deny that Israel has a national future as a kingdom, Jesus’ answer interpreted through the eyes of Theophilus shows that Luke wrote to him to inform him (and us) of this glorious truth: Jesus will restore again the kingdom to Israel at the precise time and season that the Father has put in His own power. O Theophilus, Jesus will restore again the kingdom to Israel!

In Exposition, Theology

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JESUS’ FOCUS ON THE KINGDOM PRIOR TO HIS ASCENSION

THE DISCIPLES’ QUESTION ABOUT JESUS’ RESTORING THE KINGDOM TO ISRAEL

JESUS’ ANSWER TO HIS DISCIPLES

A “THEOPHILIC” UNDERSTANDING OF THE DISCIPLES’ QUESTION AND JESUS’ ANSWER

WHY THE OPPOSING VIEW IS WRONG

CONCLUSION

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