Snippets of Life: Count Your Many.......Apples?

Blessings come in all shapes and sizes they say. This week my blessings where less like a shower and more like an avalanche! My mother in-law texted and asked if I had room in my refrigerator for apples. How nice to have a few apples, I thought, and responded, "sure!" Within minutes my refrigerator was filled with not a few apples, but a few bags of apples! Apparently Mom and the kids had been apple picking and filled the van so full that they didn't have enough seats for everyone! They of course solved this problem by stopping by and giving me a bunch so that they would have more room in the van.

I suddenly became very busy sorting apples.......

......washing apples.........

........peeling apples.......

........slicing apples..........

.......sugaring apples......

But hey, it was all worth it because the end result was 22 quarts of free apples in my freezer, plus a few leftover to eat!

Now I have visions of apple pie, apple butter and apple crisp all dancing through my head! Maybe next week.........

A Great Song Afterall?

I can't tell you how many times I have found myself thinking, as the ending strains of a song on the radio are dying away, "Ah, that was a great song! What a great message- wait a minute!" I listened to the song and though it was great, but when I actually stopped to think about what it was saying (or wasn't saying), I started to wonder if it was really such a great song afterall.

A lot of songs sound really great when you first hear them, but if you hold them up against the truth of God's Word, they just don't match up. It's so easy to just take every song on Christian radio and assume that because it's being played on K-LOVE it's message must true and in line with Scripture. Unfortunately I've found this is not the case. I'm not saying that you shouldn't listen to Christian radio stations just in case they play a song with a false message, I'm saying that you shouldn't just accept the message of every song you hear as truth just because it's sung by a Christian band, played on Christian radio or is about Jesus. The Word of God is the standard by which we determine what is true and so if a song doesn't match with what the Word of God says, then it is false even if it has the label "Christian" on it.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. There is a song on Christian radio called "What Faith Can Do" by the popular Christian band Kutless. I have heard the song several times and studied the lyrics. These were a few of my observations when I compared it with what God's Word says.

"What Faith Can Do" by Kutless

The song begins by talking about how everyone falls from time to time and has pain and problems, which is all true. The second line says "Gotta find the strength to rise" The only place to find the strength to rise about pain and difficulty is found in Jesus, but the song does not specify whether this line is referring to finding strength in Christ or if it is referring to finding the strength in yourself or other sources. Later in the verse the song's intended meaning is more clear. After talking about how you think you're problems are more than you can take, the song says, "But you're stronger, stronger than you think." That is an outright lie. Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:5 NASB emphasis mine) Jesus is the only source of true strength.

Another example from the Bible is Paul. If anyone had trouble, Paul did. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul tells us that he had been imprisoned, beaten numerous times, in danger of death beaten, with rods three times, stoned once (no, that doesn't mean drugged, it means having huge rocks thrown at your head until you die), shipwrecked three times, and spent a day and a night in the sea. He also faced dangers from rivers, robbers, his countrymen, people from other countries, and traitors, he faced dangers in the city, the wilderness,and the sea. Paul had experienced labor and hardship, sleepless nights, hunger, thirst, cold, and exposure. If anyone faced pain and hardship, Paul faced pain and hardship! And yet what does he say immediately after giving this list of all his problems? He doesn't talk about how he was stronger than he thought he was or that he found strength in himself. Instead he says, "If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness." In the very next chapter, chapter 12 verse 9, he says, "And He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me."  Paul is looking to Christ as his source of strength, not to himself.

The first line of the chorus is "I've seen dreams that move the mountains" That sounds awfully inspiring and very similar to what the Bible says, but it's not accurate. Jesus said, "truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." (Matthew 17:20 NASB) It is faith, not dreams, that moves mountains. Why? Because a dream is wishful thinking. It's your desire that you have invented and want to see come to pass. Faith is confidence in the power of God to accomplish His purposes. See the difference?

The chorus goes on to say, "I've seen miracles just happen". Do miracles just happen? A miracle is the demonstration of the supernatural power of God in this earth. A miracle is an act of God, not something that just randomly happens. When God does a miracle, it is always for a specific purpose. God doesn't just go around randomly doing random things just to make people happy. When He performs a miracle it is for His glory, for the magnification of His Name, for the furthering of His Kingdom. We can see this clearly evidenced in Scripture.

In verse two the song refers to taking a step out on the water. Since it is a "Christian" song, I presume that this is a reference to Peter walking on water. Next the song says, "it will be alright". As long as Peter kept his eyes firmly focused on Christ, everything was alright, but the moment he took his eyes off of Christ things were anything but alright! Without specifying that it will be alright if you keep your eyes focused on Christ, just saying that it will be alright is nothing but false security.

"You will find your way if you keep believing" is another rather ambiguous line. Believing in what? God?  The Bible? Yourself? Buddha? The statement is left completely wide open.

There are far more errors in this song than I can discuss individually in one blog post, but it is filled from beginning to end with statements about how you are strong, you have to face your problems, you need to try,  you will find the way, you must believe, you can do it, you have the strength to rise. This is not faith, folks, this is human effort. Faith is founded on dependence on God, the message of this song is dependence on self.

I noted as I studied the lyrics that there is not a single mention of God, or even a clear reference to Him, in the entire song. I tried to find where the lyrics indicated that the faith mentioned was faith in God, but the closest I could come was one ambiguous mention of prayer in the chorus.

I chose this song for the purpose of example, because the errors are obvious and there are lots of them. If you have doubts about my observations, feel free to look up the lyrics and take a look at them for yourself! My goal was to show you how far off center the message of even a "Christian" song can be and hopefully emphasize the importance of testing your music against the Word of God before you accept it's message as truth. The people of Berea even tested the message of Paul himself to make sure that it matched with Scripture We would do well to be a little more like them.


"Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." (Acts 17:11 NASB)

As a Newborn Baby

If you've ever been around toddlers, you know what I'm talking about when I say that they don't like to be helped. Mommy (or Daddy or Big Sister or Babysitter) wants to lend a helping hand when it comes to getting dressed and Toddler furrows his brows, yanks the clothes away and states, "I do it myself, Mommy!" Of course Mommy knows exactly what will follow. Toddler will quickly become frustrated when he gets tangled in his shirt and can't find the right hole for his head and when both legs end up in the same pant leg.

I hate to admit, but sometimes I'm a bit too much like a toddler spiritually. I'm not meaning toddler as in, I've matured from a baby, I mean toddler as in, I have a tendency to shout, "I can do it myself, God!" I have a natural discomfort when it comes to situations where crying out to God is the only thing I can do. Maybe it's my American pride, but I sometimes I start feeling like God has done so much for me, I want to do something for Him in return. I don't like always being the one that needs help. I don't want to always be "bothering" God with all of my problems. I don't like feeling needy, I don't like feeling incapable of doing things on my own, I don't like feeling dependent- Whoops! Did I just say that?

Ridiculous though it is, I think that I sometimes forget that total dependence on God means that I have to be.......dependent. I would never come out and say that I don't want to be dependent on God. Of course I need to be dependent on God! But I don't think I quite always realize what that actually means. So many times I find myself thinking things like, "I don't know how to tell if these health issues are serious or not, I hope they go away, otherwise all we could do it is cry out to God." or "I hope our financial situation improves soon so we don't always have to ask God for the next thing that we need." "I wish that we could just get our car looked at so that we don't always have to be asking God to keep us safe." Silly me! Don't I know what total dependence is? It means looking to God for everything, to meet every need!

I think that sometimes God has no other choice than to put me in situations where I am incapable of doing anything for myself in order to teach me to be dependent on Him. He doesn't want toddlers who try to "do it myself!", His desire is for us to be much more like infants whose natural response is to cry out to their Father to meet every need.

Much to my chagrin, I have come to realize that there is no such thing as a spiritual adult who is so mature that they don't need to depend on God anymore. If you try that, you will end up much more like a toddler yelling, "I can do it myself, God!"