God's Favorite Instrument

Have you ever heard a guitar that is super out of tune? Nobody likes that sound. It clashes with itself. I think one reason that it bugs us is because we expect the guitar to sound good. We expect it to produce a melody that is sweet to our ears.

In a way, our hearts are just like guitars, or any other stringed instrument. Our hearts have been created with the intention of producing a sweet and pleasing melody. We see all over the Bible that God created us with intention, that He knit us together, and that He has made us to give praise to Him. When our hearts are right before God, it is like an instrument giving glory to the King. When we join together, our hearts can become like an orchestra of praise. We see in Scripture that God desires our obedience from the heart, not just outward action. With this knowledge, I think we can safely say that properly tuned hearts are God’s favorite instrument.

However, just like other instruments, our hearts can get out of tune. Our hearts can become flat or sharp through various means. Whether it is from sin in our lives, or just constant use, our hearts need to be tuned regularly. This tuning is something that only God can do. We have not been given the ability to tune our own hearts. We have however been given the ability to go to the Father and be tuned. We get tuned by God whenever we spend time with Him in worship, in the Word, or in prayer. Fellowship with our Creator is the means by which our hearts are tuned.

This should cause us to act. We should find desire to seek God more and more, as we will be used by Him and require more frequent tuning. Empty glasses don’t quench anyone’s thirst, and out of tune instruments don’t make pleasing sounds. Our hearts don’t bring joy to God when they aren’t right before Him, when they aren’t in tune. Also, this should change our outlook on the people around us. Rather than judging people, seeing that they have things wrong, we can notice that they are out of tune. When we make these observations, we can’t do anything to fix them. We can’t tune ourselves, and even more importantly, we cannot tune others. We can pray for them, and lift them up to God asking Him to tune them, but God is the only one with the power to do that, through intimate, individual fellowship.

Let our prayer become as the line from Come Thou Fount…

“tune my heart to sing Thy grace.”

Today.

During the course of this week a friend of mine lost her grandmother. She and I talked after she found out and she told me about her grandmother. This woman had been a Christian, and I was so blessed to hear about her life. My friend had such positive things to say, and remembered her grandmother as someone who really loved the Lord.

This got me thinking about how we will be remembered. We all have a set number of days, we won’t exist forever.

Psalms 39:4, “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!”

In comparison to God, in the grand scheme of things, we have almost no time whatsoever. Our lives are very brief. I think that when we realize this, we begin to feel a sense of urgency to complete the things that are important to us.

The question of how we will be remembered is one that we all ask at times. Years from today, what will people think of us when they look back on our lives? Will people even take the time to look back on our lives? The answer to that question lies in what we do with today.

James 4:13-14, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make profit” – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

We have today, and while it is scary to think about it, we aren’t even promised to make it through today. In the moment, the choices that we make can seem irrelevant. However, those choices when put together make up who we are.

We aren’t promised the chance to be the people that we want to be one day, or the people we want to be remembered as. The only chance to be those people that we are guaranteed to have is the chance right before us, today.

When someone looks back at your life, what will they see?
I doubt they will remember the kind of car that you drove, or how much money you made. People will remember the impact that you had on their lives. So therein lays our question.

What impact are you making on the people around you today?

You might not get tomorrow, so don’t waste today.

Unexpected Entrance

The time of year has come around again, and to be honest, it's come up much more suddenly than other years. We are all busy in the hustle and bustle of day to day life, and all of a sudden Christmas is less than three weeks away.

Being busy isn't bad, but I think it is important that we stop and reflect for a moment. Some two thousand years ago, there was a young pregnant woman, with her fiance, and they were looking for somewhere to stay for the night. She was about to have her baby. As we all know from the account given in the gospel of Luke, there was no room in the inn, so Mary and Joseph ended up in the stable, with the animals. What a stage had been set for the entry of such a King.

Had we planned this, it would have gone very differently. The King of kings is entering the scene of mankind to bring life and salvation. We would have cleared out the inn entirely. The whole staff of this bed and breakfast would have been catering to Mary's every need, Jesus would have been born and instantly wrapped in the finest cloth, and in the softest bed. Announcements would have gone out. Little blue "its a boy" cards, with His weight, length, and possibly a footprint.

However, this wasn't what happened. Jesus was born in that stable that night. The Bible tells us that He was placed in a manger, which sounds almost cute. This wasn't some nice soft manger with fresh hay and a glowing light above it. This wasn't the "manger special crib" from Ikea. This was the feeding trough for the animals in the stable. This was where they ate. Jesus was placed in a food trough. It would have smelled. It would have been pretty gross, but it was good enough for God.

You see, God came to dwell with men with a purpose in mind. Jesus' purpose was to reach out to men, to give them opportunity to respond to God through something other than the law. To give mankind something more personal than the ten commandments. God gave them a person, someone they could talk to, and see, and touch. Something tangible to them. Jesus lived among the people. He was not set apart from them as something greater than they could attain. Jesus made efforts to relate to people. He spent a good amount of time sitting at the dinner table, talking with tax collectors, and prostitutes. On more than one occasion, Jesus reached out and physically touched people that the world wouldn't have gone near. Then, some thirty years after this common birth, Jesus was nailed to a cross where He died for the sins of the world. This is the greatest picture of love we have ever seen, that God would come down and die for sinful, undeserving men.

He returned three days later, having conquered death, and He will return again in all of His glory and splendor, but consider the first picture we see of Jesus.

He was a baby, He couldn't take care of Himself.
He was poor, Mary and Joseph didn't "have it made" Joseph was just a carpenter.
Jesus was born without even the extended family coming in and celebrating. There wasn't too much of a big deal made out of it that day, but it was the greatest day in history to that point.

"But He made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." - Philippians 2:7-8