Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-24-25

Like a superhero character who is not aware of his powers, or like the movies’ Pa Kettle who was once tossed unjustly into the town jail and missed the point of his friend the jailer “accidently” dropping the cell keys in front of the iron bars, many Christians don’t realize the gifts, blessings, and rights God has granted them.

Power, too. And authority. Being blessed, and the right to bless. The ability to do “greater things” than Jesus did – as He promised (John 14:12) when He said He was leaving the earth but be succeeded by the Holy Spirit. The very Spirit of God, to live in our hearts. Humbling.

That manifestation of the Triune God was indeed sent on the Day of Pentecost, and lives today in the hearts of born-again believers. “Our elder brother Jesus,” as evangelist R W Schambach used to call Him, said He was ascending to Heaven but be followed by “One who was greater,” the Spirit. And do “greater things,” beyond the attributes listed above. Also the power to heal; to forgive in the name of Jesus; to exercise gifts of wisdom and knowledge; to receive supernatural giftings of faith; to work miracles; to to speak prophetically; to discern spirits; to speak in unknown tongues and to interpret tongues and supernatural, edifying words of God.

These gifts are called Gifts of the Spirit. They are apart from one’s salvation (assurance of eternal life) but are God’s provision for Jesus-followers. Who would reject gifts… especially from God?

Yet many Christians do reject them. They are too shy to claim them. Or are embarrassed to exercise them in public. Or are “happy enough” just loving church. I can share that I have experienced them, in ways I did not expect or rehearse. I have prayed for people in turmoil and found myself knowing things they had not shared… but speaking them in prayer broke through their angst and blessed them tremendously. I have been aware of afflictions people had but were chary of detailing; how did I know? The Gift of Knowledge, and their souls were blessed.

When my son Ted was being born (my wife having been in hospital only for tests) I drove through the night, emotionally unsure, praying through my tears, unable to form my prayers, realizing my words were confused, too self-conscious to form my pleading… but then I let my heart cry out in words not familiar to me, but aware that I connected with the Throne by the Holy Spirit. I knew that I knew that I knew that God knew my desires and heard my cries. Peace that passed understanding. That has been my closest experience with that particular Gift of the Spirit.

Tongues are not the greatest (but not the least) of the Gifts, however often there is too much emphasis, by those who embrace it and those who decline its exercise.

In the larger sense, all of the Holy Spirit is ours. When God sees the born-again believer, He sees the Jesus in our hearts – and so does the devil, who wages war on us to the degree we are indwelt by the Spirit. It is simple: if we sin after conversion, God no longer sees us, but the Jesus who lives in us. We are “covered by the blood” He shed on the cross, and that’s all God sees.

When I was a new Christian I prayed with a friend and addressed God humbly, as a sinner, ashamed of my low standing, conscious of my offenses… and my friend stopped me and said I was reminding God of things He promised to forget (throwing my sins “into the sea of forgetfulness”); as a follower of Christ it was the shed blood of His Son that God saw when He dealt with me ever after. Not my sins and faults and dirty rags.

Realize your super Powers… pick up those keys… open the Gifts… let Jesus into your life in ways you never dreamed of… ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance and comfort and Power. Christianity is the only place in life where to be Power Hungry is a good thing. Its potential awaits.

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Click: Holy Spirit

2-12-19

That phrase, “My elder brother Jesus,” was used uncountable times by the evangelist R W Schambach, whose ministry played a big part in my spiritual revelations and growth. Our relationship with the Savior is multi-faceted, but this is a component that is real, and important, and not sufficiently appreciated by believers. Or acted upon.

The three members of the Godhead have multiple personalities, if I might use a contemporary clinical term in the most respectful way. To people who are skeptical about the existence and nature of God – “What about One True God?” and “Why not thousands of gods like the Eastern religions?” – usually are asked to be bratty, not truth-seeking. There is something to be savored, however, in what I called above the multiple personalities of the Deity.

The essence of the “Old Testament God” (stereotyped as stern and vengeful) did not change when He became incarnate as the Christ: new aspects, new expressions of love and forgiveness (often exemplified in the Gospel of John), were revealed. But God has always spoken, and inspired, His people in myriad ways. When Jesus ascended to the Throne, He said to His followers that it was good that He leave: “In fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment” (John 16:7,8). The Holy Spirit was present, and active from the beginning of the world, but specifically has been the source of wisdom, discernment, and power in Jesus’s place.

So the One True God has revealed Himself in three manifestations; and acts in uncountable ways, as we noted. More than an everlasting help in time of trouble, He is indeed the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and the end – literally the Great I Am. “I was formed before ancient times, from the beginning, before the earth began” (Proverbs 8:23).

When we consider the lineage and patrimony of Jesus, we are, or should be, in awe. He was the agent by whom all things were made… and was made flesh to be the agent of our salvation. He performed miracles; stilled the storms; healed the diseased; read peoples’ minds; brought the dead back to life; walked through walls and walked on water.

The simple acknowledgment of Who He is and confessing your belief, He told us, is sufficient to attain eternal life. What a mighty God we serve.

Yet do we sometimes forget the aspect, the truth, of Brother Schambach’s characterization – that Jesus is our Brother, too? There is power in that realization. The shed blood of the cross, after all, is enough to have God overlook and forgive our sins – just as the Passover lamb’s sacrifice was sealed on the lintels of believers’ doors. That is, when we accept Jesus, when we invite Him to live in our hearts, God no longer sees us, but sees His Son. We are “covered in the Blood.”

That does make us kinfolk of the Savior. Children, finally, and fully, of God. Brothers and sisters of Jesus.

I feel the persuasion to carry this beyond clichés. Many of us grew up with Sunday-school bulletins with paintings of Jesus and the little children, sort of a Holy Babysitter. Many of the older movies portrayed Jesus as a moon-faced mystic, serene and floating through crowds. We know that He was angry with the money-changers, and that He wept over the apostasy of Jerusalem; but those are rare glimpses.

As fully God and fully man, however, Jesus did everything we do. He ate and drank, more than when He consecrated meals. The water-into-wine? Surely He drank, as all the guests did. Feeding the 5000? He too would have eaten the loaves and fishes Himself also. There is no record in Scripture, but He would have defecated and urinated as other men and women did. I do not mean to blaspheme – I am not – but we need to remember that Jesus had many mortal aspects.

That is how He could identify with all of us, in all our ways.

For all the portrayals of Jesus preaching and performing miracles; for all the paintings of Him with a halo and an aura; for all the movies where we see Jesus persecuted and in agony on the cross… it would do us good to remember that He is our Brother.

I reckon that as many times Jesus preached and healed, He more often laughed, put His arm around friends and strangers, and was a brother in the best sense. That’s what brothers do.

And that’s what our elder brother Jesus still does.

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Click: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

4-16-18

There are a lot of things in life we cannot control. Or so we tell ourselves, and believe. Self-evidently, there are things that happen outside our power to anticipate or escape or even plan.

But we also affect more things than we know. Our attitudes affect our altitudes. Our morale influences our morals. And all the other fortune-cookie sayings; cliches are cliches, usually, because they ring true. Heed them… and realize that the “little things” are really big things, or might be the seeds of big things to come. You know, “big oaks from little acorns grow.” That’s true too.

I have been thinking along these lines, lately, in moody moments when I realize how minor decisions made years ago led to major situations – places, jobs, friends. Choices have implications. Let’s say a casual choice about a job, or between two places to live, set us on paths with many implications. Sometimes complications, too; but that’s life.

Seemingly casual choices can affect your life situations, and those of your children too – places, jobs, friends. Spouses, of course.

None of this is to say that life is doomed to be a game of chance, casual in the extreme. No, it is said in Ecclesiastes that “Time and chance happeneth to all.” This is not a lesson to accept the dictates of a mindless universe; we are not ball bearings in a cosmic pinball machine.

Just the opposite. As we make life choices – and life seems to make choices for us – we do best to remember a couple of things.

Life is not so random, despite appearances. God orders our steps. He creates opportunities. The “trick” is to be open to His leading, and not fearful of a soulless fate.

Even when making choices, we should remain in prayer about the next steps, future opportunities, the fields beyond the horizon we can barely see. Fervent prayer avails much, especially when that prayer enables you to be intentional about your reality.

Putting yourself in a position to serve God, to please Him in whatever you do, will put yourself in a place of blessing. You will indeed find fulfillment, to see how your dreams merge with life’s joys and God’s Will.

Never mind what the world tells you about quantum physics, or the results of random choices, or a universe that operates on karma. These things will be assigned thanks or blame for this-and-that as long as you wake up every day, and have a pulse. Design your own filing system and use your own Post-It notes when you look back on life.

Chances are you will be wrong. We cannot ascribe a full life – or even short-term happiness – to random choices, or no intentionality. We are not leaves on streams, but human beings going through life.

Thermometers display temperatures, or our surroundings. They reveal… but only to a degree (ha). We are positions to be thermostats, however: to set the temperatures of our existence. Are we hot? Are we cold? How do we start the day? What choices will we make? What standards do we apply? What situations, among thousands of choices every day, will we face and consider and act upon?

God has given us minds and free will and, most importantly, a channel through which to seek Him; speak to Him; and listen to Him.

And at the end of our lives, when God takes our virtual temperatures – how we have lived and served Him and walked in His will – it is in our power to count our blessings… not count our regrets. Setting that course is something we can do now, and not wait until the end of our days.

Make that journey worthwhile and joy-filled. You have that choice.

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Click: When I Get To the End Of the Way