I'm not sure how many of you guys watched the "American Idol Gives Back" program on Fox last night, but if you did you probably were shocked at the song they chose to close with. They sang, "Shout to the Lord." Now, I'm a pretty cynical guy, so when I watched it on YouTube, I sort of rolled my eyes during the first minute or so. Especially when I noticed that they changed the opening line from: "My Jesus..." to "My Shepherd..."
"Here we go", I thought, "Now the song could be acceptable to Christians, Jews, Muslims, heck, anyone who believes in a supreme diety." However I kept watching, and the rest of the song remained unchanged, the words were still unmistakeably Christian; the song sounded like it was being sung in a church. Not like my church, maybe more like a mega church like Saddleback, what with all the lights and the big choir in the back and the full band, but it sounded like part of a church service none the less. And this was on prime time, national television, not TBN. I decided to watch it again.
This time the irony of it all hit me. Ryan Secreast announces the song this way:
And then, "America's Idols" took the stage and sang:
My Shepherd, my Savior, Lord, there is none like You; All of my days I want to praise the wonders of Your mighty love.
I don't know if any of these guys are saved. I don't know if they even cared what they were singing, or if they were just doing it because they were told to. Maybe some of them were really, actually worshiping God. But the remarkable thing to me is that here we have on national TV, these people that are supposed to represent all that America Idolizes, and worships: the fame, the fortune, the talent, the lifestyle of rock stars that we as a country lust after, and these eight peple are in a contest that is supposed to give them all this - and here they all are singing that there is none like God, that all day they want to sing God's praises, that there is something more than what they are pursuing. And that, in itself, is something to take notice of.
Now, God knows their heart, and that is the most important part of this. Clearly Christ said in Mark 7:6-7 that worship is in vain if the heart is not in it.
And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,
"'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'
Maybe that was all that happened last night. Maybe all we watched on TV was a bunch of hypocrites pretending to worhsip God with their lips while their heart was set on fame and fortune. That part we don't know. What we do know is that in front of the whole country these guys truthfully proclaimed that there is none like God, and that He should be worshiped by all the earth. And with that I'll rejoice as Paul did when he said in Phillipians 1:18
What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
The "idols" may or may not have benefited from their worship last night, but who knows how many people throughout country may have been startled by the thought that there just may be something greater than all that they currently idolize.
Well just a quick update. I moved last weekend. Now I'm in Capistrano Beach, sharing a house with the same two guys I was before, Jeff and Matt. Previously me and Matt were living in Jeff's house, renting a room from him. Not Jeff sold his place, and Matt rented a new house, and Jeff and I are renting rooms from Matt. So, in a lot of ways, not much has changed. Except all my stuff is in boxes, and for now at least, I have my own room.
My plan is to rent from Matt until July, and then move back in with my parents for a year while I try to save up as much money as possible, and pay off my loans... or something. (There may be something else I could spend 10 grand on a year from now, but there's still a lot of undefined varibles there.) The reason I'm not moving straight into my parents house is that it's sort of crowded right now, and my little brother is getting married in June, which means that probably even more people will be staying there. At the very least my girlfriend usually stays with my parents on weekends, and will be there for two weeks between the time she's done with UCI for the year and the time she flies back to Japan, and we like to keep things on the up and up.
Oh yes, for those of you who don't know, I've been dating my younger brother's fiance's younger sister, Tomo for the last five months. She's from Japan, Jon (my brother) and I met both her and Maki (his fiance) on a mission trip to work with the church her father pastors. I've known Tomo and her family for almost five years, but it wasn't till she came to the states as a foriegn exchange student that I finally got the nerve to ask her out. I'm not quite as bold as Jon, who started dating Maki while he was in Japan, and then three weeks later came back to the US to continue a three year long distance relationship while he raised support to move to over there. I give him props for that.
My support raising goals for this month:
1. Contact 10 people to schedule a appointments to meet in person and share about Japan, how God's calling me there and ask them to join my team as a financial supporter. 2. Contact three churches about supporting me and/or allowing me to come speak at one of their services, sunday schools, or Bible Studies to enlist their memebers as supporters. 3. Get monthly support up to 22%
That's it for now, hopefully I'll be unpacked by next week, and I'll have some more to report.
I was reading this in my devotions the other day, and thought I'd share with you guys a little of waht God has been teaching me lately. I've been going through Isaiah and came accross this verse:
"Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts,him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. "
Isaiah 8:12-13
This world can be a terrifying place sometimes. Wars, catastrophes, natural disasters, there is always something to be afraid of, something people are talking about in hushed whispers or desperate cries. Certainly this was true in Isaiah's day. When God gave this word to Isaiah, his country, Judah, was under attack by Israel and Syria. Israel and Judah were kindred nations, the same people divided under the rule of two kingdoms. They were supposed to be allies. However Israel conspired to conquer Judah and enlisted the help of Syria. Ahaz, the King of Judah planned to pay a large tribute to the king of Assyria, in hopes of persuading Assyria to side with Judah against Israel and Syria. Certainly there were many conspiracy theories floating around Judah at the time; it was a time of fear, confusion, war and turmoil.
In 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles we learn a little more about the peoples of Judah and Israel during this time. They were in the midst of a spiritually dark period of their histories. Both nations were following after false gods, and had abandoned the Lord, the One who made them into a nation, and protected them from their enemies. Neither Israel nor Judah had any thought about God at this time, and instead were focused on the politics of the day, and the terrifying prospects of being conquered.
In a lot of ways this is similar to today, or almost any point in history for that matter. Human beings are always involved in conflicts, always scared of disasters, always coming up with conspiracy theories. And yet we as Christians are told to just trust God, he's got everything under control, no matter how ridiculous that sounds to us sometimes. People often ask, "What is God doing?" not expecting any sort of answer, and rightly so; God has no obligation to explain Himself. The fact that He occasionally gives us glimpses of what's going on behind the scenes is a gracious act on His part.
However, we are privileged to see God's side of things in the opening chapters of Isaiah. It turns out that God was intentionally causing all this turmoil and strife. He was using one nation to punish another, because His people had abandoned Him. Judah and Israel were supposed to be lights among the darkness of the pagan nations surrounding them. Yet they had become just like the pagan nations but still were known to be the people of YAWEH. To allow Israel to be wicked and successful would be an affront to God's character.
In this instance, things seemed like they were spinning wildly out of control to the people of Judah. But they were fearing the wrong thing. They feared Israel and Syria, they hoped in Assyria. They should be fearing God who brought these nations against them, they should have been hoping in God, repenting and turning back to Him, looking to Him for salvation. In truth this is what He sent Isaiah to proclaim in Judah, but the people did not listen. Nothing was out of control, everything was happening exactly as God was planning and willing it to happen, in fact in this case, it was God who was bringing calamity upon His people. The problem was just that no one trusted Him.
The same is true today. People say the world is out of control, that we are all doomed. There are hundreds of conspiracies discussed among politicians, whispered among friends and flamed across the internet. All these are ultimately a distraction from the real issue. God is in Heaven and He is doing all that He pleases. Not only is He capable of handling all the problems of this world, all of them are happening exactly according to His plan and purpose. He we must honor as Holy, He is the one we should fear. Isaiah is a testimony to God's Sovereignty, His declaration that he knows the beginning from the end, and that He is working all things exactly according to His purpose. There is much wrong in the world today, but God is working both in spite of it, and through it to bring about the perfection of all things according to His promises.
Now, I want to be clear that I am not trying to make some point about God judging America, or that the tragedies which have befallen us lately are what we deserve. That may or may not be true, and regardless it would not justify the evils of terrorism, oppression and tyranny. My point is that if we as Christians fear these enemies, if we wrap ourselves up in politics and conspiracies at the expense of forgetting about God, then we run the same risk that the peoples of Israel and Judah did: we risk incurring God's discipline. He will not be ignored. I believe He is more concerned with the hearts of His children, and the work of His Church than with nations and conflicts and politics. Certainly these are important, but if we fear them more than we fear the One who moves all of history according to His purpose we will be overcome with despair and hopelessness. Our focus must be on God, and His words, and His teachings, we should fear sinning and dishonoring God more than we fear wars and poverty. We should seek first to build the Kingdom of God before we concern ourselves with any earthly kingdom. Nations will rise and fall, but God reigns through eternity.
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases
Hey guys! I just want to say that I love Xanga, and all (6) of you that read my blog. However, I'm consolidating. As you all know, I'm on my way to becoming a missionary to Japan, and now I have my own website, with its own blog, and I'll be updating that (almost) exclusively instead of maintaing three or four different blogs. That said, go check out:
For the latest. I'll put little reminders here every now and then, and if I write something really inspired, I may post it here too. Anyways, keep in touch!
