(Please note- this Friday Sabbath evening recap of my praising God in music will turn into my Saturday Sabbath morning Bible study. So skip over the beginning if you're only interested in the study) Thanks!
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Bill Gaither's Best - On the Gospel Music Channel
Starts out my Friday evening Sabbath music praising and worshipping of my God and my Savior :)
Songs-
It starts out with --
Old Camp Meeting Days.
The 2nd song was - The Old Country Church, not too bad. It's interspersed with many old favorites. :) Of course I don't believe in the whole going on Sunday stuff, but other than that I really like the song. :) So did my feet which were kept tapping. Hehe.
The Tabernacle - was next, I like the violin in this one :) Nice song :) Again it had a very catchy tune, uplifting.
Just Tell Them When You Saw Me I Was on My Way - :) Not too bad...a hand clapping song. :) Most of these seem to be like that.
Well Water - I really like this song :) Well water.. flowing from a river that will never run dry :) Amen!
Rock of Ages - A wonderful favorite! :)
Tell Me the Story of Jesus - very, very nice song. :)
I Go to the Rock - Really nice song! *foot tapping* *sings* I go to the Rock of my salvation! I go to the Rock! Christ the solid Rock I stand! I go to the Rock of my Salvation! Woohoo! When I need shelter, when I need a friend I go to the Rock! Praise God!
The Least I Can Do - was next :) The least I can do is live for Him! So true :)
The Baptism of Jesse Taylor - A nice story song :)
I Saw the Light - A very snappy version! :) *happy feet dancing!*
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Bill Gaither's - Amazing Grace
1. Amazing Grace (Featuring Buddy Greene on harmonica, Russ Taff, The Booth Brothers)
Great harmonica playing! Beautiful and touching as ever this song was. *sniffled lots* God is so wonderful, we are so undeserving. Praise Him! Praise God!
2. God Of Our Fathers (Featuring Shane McConnell) I hadn't heard this song in many years, it was really nice to hear it again :)
3. Come, Thou Fount Of Every Blessing (Featuring Buddy Greene, Jeff Taylor) I love this song so much. One of my favorites from long ago. Here's my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. Amen!
4. Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior (Featuring Allen Asbury) Another old favorite :) *happy happy*
5. At Calvary (Featuring Lynda Randle, Jessy Dixon) Amen! Amen! Amen!
7. Love Lifted Me (Featuring Kim Hopper) Hehe, another I haven't heard in ages :) So good to hear it! :)
8. I Need Thee Every Hour (Featuring Randy Owen, The Isaacs) Beautiful, wonderful, such a great song! *sings* I need thee oh I need thee, every hour I need theeee, bless me now my Savior, I come to thee.
9. Burdens Are Lifted At Calvary (Featuring Ladye Love Smith) This is a new one for me, I like it a lot :)
10. I Then Shall Live (Featuring Gaither Vocal Band, Ernie Haase & Signature Sound) *sniffs* So beautiful... soooooo very beautiful.
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Snack time :) and then moreeee music! More praise, more worshipping in song! Amen!
Newsboys- Something beautiful :) I like this song :) It's a voice that whispers my name... something beautiful....
Next song by Newsboys-
Blessed Be Your Name!! *bounces around* wonderful song!! *sings* Blessed be Your name! Blessed be the name of the Lord! Blessed be Your nammmmmmmmmmeeeee!
Blessed be Your gloriousssssss name! Amen! woohoo!
Next-
All God's Children! :) Singing! Glory Glory! Hallelujah! He reigns! He reigns! All God's people saying! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah He reigns!
Next-
Stay strong. :) Listening to it for the first time... I like it :) We do need to stay strong throughout it all. Stay strong in Jesus! Amen.
Stay strong... you're not lost... stay strong! Get up there's further to go, Get up there's more to be done... get up this race can be won!!!!
This race can be won! Stay strong!!! There'll be no letting go today! Stay strong!
Shine is next :) a cute song! Shout let them wonder what you got! Shine...shine! Glorify the Lord! You were born to glorify the Lord! AMEN To that!
Enjoyed the rest of the show! :) Wild, crazy and an unmistakable passion for Christ shines through.
:)
*****
One last Bill Gaither show :) Then some reading and bed. :) Lotsa wonderful studying tomorrow God willing. :)
Right Place, Right Time- an interesting.. forties like song but gospel :)
I Trust In God :) Good song :)
***** (Sabbath Morning Bible Study or what turns into it… hehe)
Well I ended the night by listening to a few more songs, it was really nice and then I lay in bed read a bit from a C.S. Lewis Classic- The Great Divorce- a dream. There are a lot of interesting things in the preface to that very fictional story about heaven/hell/earth/death and I emphasize fictional story, hey, even He emphasized it. :)
I'm going to take a few moments to copy a snippet of the preface to share-
'Even on a biological level life is not like a river but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creature grows further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.
I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot 'develop' into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, 'with backwards mutters of dissevering power'- or else not. It is still 'either-or'. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernal of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in 'the High Countries'. In that sense it will be true for those who have completed the journey (and for no others) to say that good is everything and Heaven everywhere. But we, at this end of the road, must not try to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do, we are likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse and fancy that everything is good and everywhere is Heaven.
But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.'
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Isn't that profound? Seriously. Yes, they are only C.S. Lewis' meanderings and suppositions, his ideas and fancies but they make an odd kind of sense to me.
Evil can't be made good. Just like the math problem can't be fixed- not ever - unless it's redone and the moment the error in the calculation is found, then it can be redone correctly. But if you don't go back to find the error you can go forward forever and it will never put the math problem right, not ever. There is no magic spell that changes evil into good, it doesn't exist. You can stop doing evil, but that doesn't change the evil that you already did. You can be forgiven of past evil, but it won't change the evilness of that evil. You can even forget about the evil, forget it ever happened but it won't change if you suddenly remember it twenty years later, it's still evil.
I think some people, myself included, wish that by forgiveness there was forgetfulness. That there was a way to go back in time and undo all the evil committed so it would never have to be recalled. The pain of remembering the evil and the results from that evil are tremendous and yes, we can give it all to God and yes, we can find grace through Jesus, our sins will be forgiven, but I don't think we are supposed to forget. As awful as that sounds, I think we are supposed to remember our sins from time to time just like we are supposed to keep the atrocities of evil on a grand, worldly scale, in remebrance. We remember because to forget is risking committing the evil again.
You might say, oh no! I've learned my lesson, never again will I commit that evil, even if you let me forget that I did that evil. I say, if you don't recall the evil you did you can't recall the forgiveness you received and you won't recognize the weight of that sin and you are therefore liable to commit the sin again because the evil of it isn't personal to you any longer.
I could be wrong. I don't know to be quite honest. I could be wrong but as we live with the weight of our forgiven sins on our shoulders we have less chance of adding more weight to them, right? I'm not saying dwell under the grief and anguish of your past sins, no not at all. Rejoice in the forgiveness Jesus gives, rejoice in His great mercy, in God's amazing love for us. What I'm saying is don't be surprised if you're walking along in your life all forgiven from the past and that past you know is forgiven comes back to your mind as if it gained about thirty pounds. Don't be surprised, recognize that there is a reason for your recall and the added pain of the memory and thank God through Jesus Christ our Savior for that forgiveness all over again and for the memory that keeps you aware of the sins and the price paid for them. No wallowing in the guilt, no using it like an excuse...oh, I can't forget it so I might as well keep on with it. No, don't do that! Realize that not forgetting doesn't mean you're not forgiven. One day when we meet Jesus in the air and He takes us to Heaven, one day when we receive our robes of His righteousness and we enter a sinless existence, one day we'll be allowed to forget completely and it's the hope of that glory we live for in Jesus.
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No, I don't think all that I babbled on was what C.S. Lewis meant by his preface bit I copied, but hey, I needed to say it I guess. Back to the preface- I particularly liked this- 'But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.'
If we live for our lives here and now believing this life, this earth is all there is, I think we will realize that this earth we live in is just a playground of Satan's, a home he's made for himself here as prince of this world. A home we are born into, grow up in, and yes, die in having never seen Heaven. Our hope is in a world not run by Satan. Our hope lies in the world of Heaven, whatever it may be knowing it's a place free of all sin and the ravages of sin.
It's sad to imagine people believing this is as good as it ever gets, this life, this world. There is no hope or so many who believe that way. It's a life of endless despair and we wonder why so many people are caught up in drugs and sensual pleasures grasping at all they can to make what they believe to be their only hope, their only life a better place. It's like they're trying to put frosting on a pile of dog poo and call it dinner. Gross, yes, but seriously. People living for this earth and this life alone try and try and try to make it something good and constantly problems will arise. If you're poor the problems seem to endlessly be about not having enough money to live as you please. If you're rich it's constantly about not having enough riches, of the riches being superficial because money doesn't buy a place beyond Satan's playground, it only buys a richer tasting frosting so the dog poo goes down a bit easier. Seriously, nothing can turn the evil of this world into good. Remember the math sum? You have to find out WHERE the problem occured and fix it from there, not try to change the problem into another altogether, that won't make the error of the real problem any less wrong. We can't ever make this world we live in- Heaven. We can however, live FOR Heaven.
As C.S. Lewis wrote and I quoted above- '...and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.'
If we live for Heaven, if we live for Jesus and the world He promised to us, we'll realize that yes, here on earth, here among the playground of Satan himself, we were allowed a taste of Heaven. Jesus. The earth was never intended to be Satan's playground and I think that's what we'll realize. That even among all the horrific playground toys erected by Satan, glimpses of what the earth was intended for can be found, but only if we live for Heaven, realizing that this earth is Satan's playground, can we truly see those little bits of Heaven. Those little bits which are never intended to make us believe that we are living in Heaven now here on earth and this is all there is to life, period, end of story.
No wonder Jesus said--
John {8:23} And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
John {18:36} Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence
John {14:30} Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. {14:31} But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.
John {17:14} I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. {17:15} I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. {17:16} They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. {17:17} Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. {17:18} As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into
the world. {17:19} And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. {17:20} Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word
**
It can't be any clearer than that, can it.
Make no mistake, this isn't as good as it all gets, this world we live it in isn't all there is. We have hope beyond this life we live in Satan's Playground. As in all playground with the children playing and running about, there are safety zones. The safety zone in this playground can only be found in God, through the mercy of Jesus, by His grace, by His everlasting love, the truth we are sanctified by. Because Satan's playgrounds isn't like the playground of our youths where it's all games and make believe and no one is killed if they don't make it to safety, we have to realize that death is the outcome for ALL who don't make it to the safety zones found in Jesus, this is the truth.
Amen!
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