Monday Morning Music Ministry

8-11-25

May I share random observations, revelations, and (I pray) inspired thoughts I recently have had, and jotted down? What percentage of each is of the Holy Spirit or “me, myself, and I,” is for others to debate or decide. But these thoughts have got me to thinking – perhaps a major accomplishment right there – and maybe they’ll start spiritual balls rolling in your daily walk too…

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Satan tempts.
God tests.

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Pride might be the chief sin, the worst offense of all.
Every other sin is committed because we think we know better than God, or He will give us a “pass.”

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Life without Jesus can yield partial success…
But it ultimately guarantees total failure.

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Not original with me, but it is in the Bible –
And a deadly warning if you ignore it:
Be not deceived; God is not mocked.

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The Bible has been 100 per cent correct about prophecies fulfilled. The world scurries about, managing at best to predict the past.

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No offense meant to charitable impulses,
But in God’s view there is a big difference between giving and forgiving.

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The James Webb Space Telescope reveals the incredible immensity of God’s universe. We see that Earth is, relatively, one tiny dot.
Secular people say that means we are insignificant.
God says that means we are special!

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Stop trying to be Politically Correct.
What matters is that we be Spiritually Correct!

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We are told that no one knows the time of Jesus’s return to earth.
I do!
… It will be the time we least expect it.

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You can’t lose a friend you never had.
What a Friend we have in Jesus!

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Jesus is never rude, but He can be annoying.
That knocking you hear at the door – when will you open it?

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An appropriate testimony and prayer by the autistic blind boy Christopher Duffley.
Written by my friend Paul Baloche.

Click: Open the Eyes of My Heart

2-12-18

St Valentine is one of those saints who has become known as much for not having lived as for the sacred ascriptions to his disputed existence. The Catholic Church removed him from its calendar of actual saints some years ago, bowing to the back-canonical aspect of his legend. Like some other former saints, he might have been invented to fill a need.

Or, there having been several priests and martyrs named Valentine during Christianity’s first few centuries, the saint associated with love and high interpersonal devotion might be an amalgam.

In any case – and to the extent we keep in context the elements of remembering loved ones, and the power of love, and the encouragement to love – we can affirm the flowers and cards and hugs. Hallmark and ProFlowers and CandyGrams aside, it is good to revere love in the larger sense.

Love, actually, is not love if considered, and exercised, outside the “larger” context. People have tried to define the distinctions between humankind and beasts – laughing, cruelty, imagination, disco music – but Loving must be the predominant quality. We can receive love; we can offer love; we can act according to love, at least when we are not hating, and this explains a lot of history’s art and music and literature and poetry.

Can we understand it? Not fully, I say… but that is part of its allure and fascinating essence. I also think we are fated to only imperfectly express love: and even then only to the extent we can receive it.

“Love is patient, love is kind… ”

Which gets us face-to-face with God’s love. His love created the world – the universe and all therein. His love supersedes His vengeful aspects in that while we were yet sinners, He sent His only Son to become flesh and dwell among us, and take upon Himself the punishment we deserve for our rebellion. That is love.

As I asked above, Can we understand it? As I answered, not fully. We never will. But we can accept it.

Recently we shared thoughts here about unanswered prayer. Can a loving God say No to our earnest pleas? As God, fulfilling His job description so to speak, He knows what we need, even when we are persistent about things we want. The basis of that (as if He needs to justify Himself… but understanding this helps our faith) is… Love.

The heart is a fist-sized organ with fleshy tubes in and out, chambers, valves, and uncountable pulsations. How this hard-working bloody thing came to be associated by poets and painters, saints and sages, with the tenderest of often indescribable emotions is another thing I will never understand.

Yet we draw heart shapes when we are in love, despite the fact they don’t resemble hearts. We send drawings of them to those we love; we carve them into tree trunks. Even the worst characters in history have loved someone – a girl or guy; their mothers; a pet. It is a disease for which there is no immunity. Thank God.

On the other hand, the human race is not immune to the Broken Heart either. In a way, these sad experiences validate the positive truth and power of romantic love: it is not abstract, not an illusion. To paraphrase the poet: Love is real! Love is earnest!

Returning to the God-foundation of these matters (as He is the foundation of all things), even God has not escaped the reality of a Broken Heart. He identifies with our sorrow, our grief, and to the aspect of love that can “leave a hole” in our emotions.

God Himself? Yes, despite His plans and ordained Will, He knew – He knows – what it is like to lose a Son. But God so loved the world…

Please think of love, then, as more than the cheap theme for a holiday; and don’t let it ever become a cheap theme in your life.

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Click: Open the Eyes of My Heart