A Little Closer To Home

A Little Closer To Home…

When Jesus gets hold of us things change.  We may not want our lives to change, it may even cause new issues to arise.  However we can be clear that as we grow in Christ Jesus our lives will change.  If after reading these three sentences you beg to disagree, and after some prayerful thought on the subject decide that your life is not changing, I would pastorally suggest you also are not Spiritually growing.  I am unable to find one time in the Bible where Jesus came into contact with folks and their lives did not change.  Some lives changed by miles others by only inches, but contact with the Messiah offers change.

While I am on my soapbox also hear this; I do not love Lawrence Welk.  It does not matter how long I listen to the champagne music makers I will not love their music.  We are told, and even come to believe, that if we just listen to Welks’ music long enough we will finally come to appreciate and even love it.  Nothing could be further from the truth for me.  Welk was a man of his time, contemporary for the day in which he lived.  My music, the stuff that moves my soul, came along a couple decades later.  Using the same thoughts I must also agree that my music will not move the soul of many who come after me.  No matter how much I play my music, my grandchildren are not going to “get it.”  And so it goes.

Some good news is that we believe God sorts out all the change in our lives.  We believe that which changes is the medium, not the message.  It is not a problem that our contact with God changes us.  God contact can be uncomfortable perhaps or a new learning curve but should not be a big problem.  What would be problem is if God were changed by contact with us.  Whoa Nellie…, now that would be a big problem.  God becomes like humanity, film at 11.  It is we who are made in the image of God, not the other way around.  

What if every time I heard Lawrence Welk he became a little more like Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana?  Now that would be really weird.  So I guess it is good God does not change.  Because if you like Welk, I am glad and never want his music to be anything but that which makes your heart sing a song of life to the world.  Same for other types of music, and the same is true for the church and the ways we go about offering love and grace to a hurting world.  Change in our lives is expected.  The ways we offer Christ to the world will certainly also change.  What will never change is love and grace of our God.  The substance of our God is static and without compromise.  Our God is an awesome God.