Standing Firm

So I'm on a tiny crusade. Maybe its my life mission or something, or maybe its just a fad for right now. But the mission is this, I want people to understand being a Christian to mean knowing and following the words of Jesus. Call me crazy, but first let me explain. I grew up in church almost my entire life, and for the most part it has been a pretty positive experience. But it wasn't until after I graduated high school and was out on my own that I really started asking myself some hard questions about what it was I actually believed.

At some point though, I understood and believed that becoming a follower of Jesus was the only way to truly find "eternal life" which as I understand it, is simply life that works both here and now, and there and then. But the problem was I realized that in church I had just been taught how to say that I was a Christian. But I honestly couldn't have told you more than 10 or 15 things that Jesus actually said to do.

And I've found that today isn't much different. Most professing Christians (little chirst's) are woefully ignorant on what it was that Jesus actually asked them do, and how he asked them to live. Now they know what their denominational stances are about issues like abortion and gay marriage, but they will sooner take you to the words of Moses than those of Jesus.

And this is sad to me. Not because Moses is bad, or that any part of the Bible is not important, but in my mind if our life and hope is centered on Jesus, and we call ourselves his followers, shouldn't we be VERY familiar with his entire body of work? All of what he said and did and asked us to do?

If not, that would honestly be like saying you were a rabid Beatles fan, but just because you liked that one song Hey Jude.

Like saying you are a Yankee's fan because you like their logo.

Like saying you're a follower of Jesus just because you want to go to heaven.

The latest song is just about the parable of the wise and foolish builders. The point of which is, the foolish builder is the one who hears Jesus' words but then goes away and doesn't put them into practice.

The problem for Christianity is not so much that they have not heard what Jesus said, but simply that there is almost no intention whatsoever to attempt to live as he suggested. Turn the other cheek, Lay down your life, Love God with all you have, Serve your friends and enemies alike, Pray, Fast and don't judge your brother, and most of all Love the WHOLE WORLD like He did.

If only...



Life's A Beach

They say life is a beach, but I think that I’m finally getting tired of all of this sand
cause here my house keeps slippin’ and my faith starts dippin’
when I listened to the radio man
Give me the felt board jesus and my snack and a little bit
of time to chew on his words
Cause I’m dreaming of a house that’s laughin when the waves come crashing cause we know it’s gonna stand firm

oh can’t we go back to the words filled with truth and grace
I wanna hear from the one who has gone up and seen their face
Dressing me in his robes of love, and telling me about His spirit to come
He said be looking for a Spirit of hope and peace,
in Him I’m feeling my deepest longings cease
These words are making me whole, and they’re taking me home

Sunday used to be a home for the poor and needy, but we got a little greedy and wise
so now their spots got taken by the ones with bacon
who know their way around a white lie.
Oh we’ll sing you our favorite songs
and tell you bout the books that we’ve recently read
but we don’t have the time
for your friend named jesus and following the words that he said!

oh can’t we go back to the words filled with truth and grace
I wanna hear from the one who has gone up and seen their face
Dressed up in his robes of love, and telling me about His spirit to come
He said be looking for a Spirit of hope and peace,
in Him I’m feeling my deepest longings cease
These words are making me whole, and they’re taking me home

Home to be with whom
laid death back in his tomb
If you seek Him while He’s near,
He’ll tune that ear of yours to hear

those words filled with truth and grace
If you wanna hear from the one who has gone up and seen their face
He dressing in his robes of love, and telling me about His spirit to come
He said be looking for a Spirit of hope and peace,
in Him I’m feeling my deepest longings cease
These words are making me whole, and they’re talking me home

Talk about Hope

This is actually really stinking cool. What a guy that coach is!

Back to the start

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in this world, to abstain from the temporal longings, which war against your soul. Rather, live such good lives among the people here that, even though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see the goodness of your work and glorify God on the day that He visits us.

There are some days that I get a longing. No matter what's going on here, whether times are good or bad, I just get this feeling deep within me that looks for something else. It's like a tiny itch in the back of my mind, the faintest glimmer on the edge of my vision, an almost inaudible whisper that reminds me, "This place is not your home."

And truthfully, there are sometimes when it seems to go away. When I am surrounded and safe in the company of the ones who I love and when I am surrounded by the beauty of nature; sufficiently removed from my worries and stress. But even then there is something missing. And this notion of home is what seems to drive a lot of the thoughts and images in the songs that I write.

The song that I'm sharing with you today was the first one that I ever composed. It was written in response to a talk that I was giving for a community youth gathering last summer. I was that guy who spoke and sang a song at the same time. But as much as I didn't want to, I felt and still feel that the song was important enough to share, because it has a timely message.

And its simply this: If you believe in the resurrection of Jesus, then this place is not your home. This doesn't mean, act like a traveling American and assume that this foreign place should bend to your desires and values. Rather, carefully keep watch over your soul and live out the goodness of your homeland, so that even though the people here will note your difference and possibly try to accuse you of doing wrong, they won't be able to stand up against the weight of goodness that results.

This begs the question...what is good?

Well, I'll give you my two conclusions.

1. Jesus is good.

If you follow Him and attempt to live by His words, you will do good. You will produce "good fruit". In my opinion, there is no better way to live. Living the Jesus Way is the only real hope that exists.

But if for some reason that seems too complicated, or you have a problem with the Jesus you have been shown, or you have some problem with reading the Bible, you can do the following.

2. Trading in your treasure is good.

Almost all of what Jesus encouraged his followers to do can be summed up in this. In this world there is a hierarchy of value. It goes as follows: Life, Power, Currency. These are the treasures of this world. Without life, the other two are pointless, but with enough power, you can do anything, and with enough currency, you can do almost anything.

What is good, in my opinion, is willing expending the riches of this world on those who are poor. That is how you trade in your treasure. Meaning, be willing to give your money, your power, and your own life for the sake of others.

Now I tricked you because you really can't do the second without Hope in Jesus. The only way you should lay down your life is if you believe in the resurrection. Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 15 if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others.

But the song that I wrote is simply all about asking for the faith to follow Jesus down that narrow road. The road in which we trade in the currency of this world for the currency of our home with God in the life to come.

What is that currency? I'm not exactly sure. But I'm willing to bet my life I won't be disappointed by the exchange.



Hope That's True

A garden, a tree, a promised land
All signs of a loving father's hand
Which tree will we choose? an eternal fight
The fruit brought us death, the cross bought life

will i be among the faithful few
who loved not this world and followed you
with hope that is not in gold, but hope that true

jesus one thing I ask of thee
make me not rich, but make me free
to live for a world, that’s real, but hard to see

See how this place has made us blind
The light of the world is now hard to find
Have we gained it all, just to lose our soul?
Oh Father we’re lost, you’re our only hope!

chorus

This place gets stranger by the day
cause its not my home
stranger by the day
my life is not my own
stranger by the day
I'm just a stranger here by day,
and yours for life

One day he’ll make all these old things new
He’s promised a home, where pain is through
Then the life we have sought will have just begun
Here we may crawl but there we will run

chorus

The Castle Wall

Hello again. Or does this feel like the first time? Ha, that song always made me laugh. "The first time what?", I ask. The first time you held hands? Aw that's cute. But what does "won't you open up the door" mean exactly? Hmm. Maybe we'll never know.

However, when you consider the first verse of that song, it seems like that was the "I've heard it said" that Mac Powell of Third Day was thinking of when he wrote their Love Song.

Anywho. Yet another song comes forth. This was the 2nd or third original song that I wrote, and I dusted it off and changed some things around and still think is simply OK. Nothing special, but not bad either.

Actually, now that I think about it. It was the first song that I composed as a part of "The Pact" with Lukas and Tatum, but I guess I'll have to do a post about that in and of itself at some point.

This one is called The Castle Wall and is all about the differences between me and God. Me being broken and flawed, Him being perfect and good.

The first verse is the idea about how I'm stuck fumbling through life, often out of step, but still headstrong. And then there's God who perfect and outside of the whole space/time continuum that I exist in, and yet "jumped in the stream" so to speak, to save us.

The chorus just suggests that a plan of that sorts is sort of ludicrous (This is culture that we live in. I spelled that ludacris without a second thought until spell check took a look).

Verse 2 is a bit of a whopper grammatically, but the idea is once again the differences between me and God. My heart literally "beats" so it works, but I break other peoples hearts with my selfishness, stupidity, etc. His heart, (which one could make the case probably doesn't exist in the physical sense) fails in one sense because it empties all it has (life blood) but heals the world at the same time, because it is full of grace. Kinda complicated, but I couldn't think of a better way to say that.

And finally Verse 3 is just the problem of knowing that your broken and flawed, but in pride lying to yourself and the world and building walls around yourself with expectations and promises that you can't keep. Who would climb the "castle wall"? Well my friend. Jesus did. Good news :)

Anyway, that's the gist.

Hope you enjoy. Comments are always appreciated. Even if they are, "That was mediocre."



The Castle Wall

verse1
there’s me who’s dancing out of time
oh so lost but full of steam
and you who dance outside of time
but swim within its stream

chorus
and i cannot see
our similarity
no this cannot be
the plan
one so perfect in
his divinity
that would come and live
with man

verse2
my heart beats, but often fails
for broken hearts it makes
your heart empties all it has
life blood rich with grace

chorus2
and i cannot see
our similarity
no this cannot be
the plan
one so perfect in
his divinity
that would live and die
for man

verse3
steeped in weakness, but feigning strength
my boasts have hemmed me in
who would climb this castle wall
just to reach the mess within

chorus3
and i long to see
some continuity
between what I believe
and do
cause one so perfect in
his divinity
took my old and made it new

Teenage Wasteland

Out here in these fields is a new song. I'm sure we'll get to the ones I've already written soon enough, but this one is hot off the press.

I thought up the idea for the chorus last night on the way home while K8 and I were listening to pop music, so you can only imagine how deep and thoughtful it will be:)

Nah, but the idea behind this one was just kinda poking fun at those who do the roller coaster of partying/casual sex/drugs/and binge drinking etc and then wallowing in self-loathing and hate, simply because some of them are convinced that they have to reach the absolute bottom of the barrel before they can give up their empty lifestyle.

I know being a musician and poking fun at drugs and binge drinking is probably against some guild covenant, but whatever.

In other news, this is the first decided un-religious song I've written, but I still had to resolve a tiny bit in the bridge. Lemme know your thoughts.



Got Things Started

The party wasn’t the same without my drug
I wonder who they found to split and then chew up.
Once I beat the chagrin, I’ll be back in the hunt,
This innocence is a chore that’ll soon get done.

I’m not sick enough of myself to change, not when the fun’s just started
These days failure could one day be my fame, whoa oh!
Don’t you worry for me, I’ll feed myself the lies that I need to make it
A steady diet of self-loathing should help, at least its what got things started now

The purity of my youth is lost and gone
But once you give up on love, its not so hard (its hard)
Isn’t there some kind of floor beneath this all?
Or am I cursed to perpetually fall?

I’m not sick enough of myself to change, not when the fun’s just started
These days failure could one day be my fame, whoa oh!
Don’t you worry for me, I’ll feed myself the lies that I need to make it
A steady diet of self-loathing could help, at least its what got things started now

Looking to be broken hearted?
Burned by fires you never started?
Think you’re hated, not created and loved, and its done.

But I’m not sick enough of myself to change, not when the fun’s just started
These days failure could one day be my fame, whoa oh!
Don’t you worry for me, I’ll feed myself the lies that I need to make it
A steady diet of self-loathing could help, at least its what got things started now
I know that’s what got things started
I know that’s its all been started now
And its to late to stop its started now

Now that's what I'm talking about

See now, I asked for feedback and I really did mean it. For example, Keight let me know that the bridge in Peace Bought with Blood actually sounded a little bloodthirsty.

I can see that, and I sure didn't want that, so I did a little editing and I think the result is much better, and I threw in a little more at the end to fill up the space.

Now we have...



Bridge

Oh but I see in me
the antonym of peace.
Where I would fight, you'd die
so what do I even believe?

This puts the focus more on some of the inconsistencies of our (well at least my) faith, claiming we believe in Jesus, but not really being willing to follow his example.

"Wait, hold up, you want me to die?

Kenosis

This song was the result of several different sources that I've come across over the last year and a half or so. I think to be honest, a real change happened for me after reading the book Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. That book really challenged my thinking on lots of things, but especially about Jesus' teachings and example on non-violence. A couple months ago I then came across this podcast about the ethic of kenosis and it reminded me of what IR originally stirred up within me. Anyway, I think I'll do a whole post just about this topic at some point, because its quite at lot to look at, but the idea boils down to the myth of redemptive violence. Meaning, the idea that you can bring peace by overcoming your enemies by force. Once again I'm not going to go into it here, but the long and short of it is that that just flat out doesn't work. Violence breeds violence and hate and rage and the only real solution to violence is to put your own life on the line and non-violently stand against the aggressor. Literally, you must be willing to buy peace with your own blood.

So lately I've been really meditating on Jesus' particular path of non-violent peacemaking and just the ridiculousness of the God of the universe humbling himself in such a way (a la Philippians 2:5-11) , and so this is kind of a worship song celebrating that.



a king took off his crown
he laid his glory down
deserving bended knee
he chose humility
so the lost ones could be found

could it be
such a love for me?

so give your glory glory to the son
of god who died for those he loved
our shame is gone, the kingdom come
our peace bought with his blood

a man laid down his life
a willing sacrifice
beautiful god above
became like those he loved
to ransom back his wife

oh so loved is she
throughout eternity

so give your glory glory to the son
of god who died for those he loved
our shame is gone, the kingdom come
our peace bought with his blood

Oh but I see in me
the antonym of peace
I want the enemy's head
but let me give my life instead

chorus (2x)