If We Are The Body

But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way

Jesus payed much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the body of Christ

Jesus is the way

From the song If We Are the Body by Casting Crowns

Day by Day

Day by day
Day by day
Oh Dear Lord
Three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly
Day by day

From the musical Godspell

Coming Soon...

Adopted

Psalm 13

Most of us know that as Christians we need to have the Word of God in our heart. The thing is, memorising the Bible is HARD. Especially if you want to memorise more than a verse or two here or there. A chapter? Not easy.

One of the easiest ways to remember portions of scripture is to set them to music. There are lots of different versions of psalms available on the internet, on CDs, etc. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're highly edited and abridged. Often it's hard to get a whole section all in the one song.

I was kind of annoyed at that, so I decided to just make up a song or two as I worked on memorising psalms. Here is Psalm 13. I did the music for this in December last year.



Psalm 13 For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
4 my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.

Using Your Gifts

I've been thinking about how we as Christians are expected to use the gifts that God has given us. Mostly because of the comments I get when I sing.

You see, I used to be a singer in a famous children's choir. I've sung overseas, including at an audience for the Pope, for royalty, ambassadors, etc. And that was before my voice matured. Now I sing well.

And boy do I ever get comments. Both in the world and in the church, people who barely know me, who otherwise would never speak to me, will tell me what a beautiful voice I have and how I should be doing something with it.

This is kinda annoying. They heard me singing. Clearly I'm doing something with my voice.

But it's one thing to hear this at work, or other places in the world. I expect to be told that I should be releasing CDs and singing professionally (and presumably raking in the money) there. The world likes money, it likes fame.

But in the church?

I get told at least once a month that I should be part of the worship team. I was even ASKED to be part of the worship team - even though I'm not a member of JG (which is a requirement for such things). I said no, explaining that I was quite vain enough about my voice.

But seriously, why is it that the only way of "using a gift" is to do so in the most public possible manner?

God looks at the heart. He doesn't look at my voice the way people do. He considers it just as well used if I am singing to calm a crying child as if I am singing in front of thousands - and possibly singing for the child is far more important.

We need to focus on using our gifts the way God wants us to; not on "using" them in the most public manner possible.