Monthly Archives: February 2011

Fascinating Facts of the Faith

Day 34

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Fascinating Facts of the Faith 

 2008 Barbour Publishing,Inc.

Songs of the Faith

Imagine how it must have felt to be separated from your loved ones and taken far from your native land–against your will. Is it any wonder that African-Americans living as slaves in America embraced Christianity? It provided the promise of hope and freedom from bondage in the life to come.

Unlike free men, those living under the fist of slavery had no time for a convenient faith. It was to them a port in the storm, a life boat in the ocean, a vibrant part of everything they did. It had to be. One of the results of their passionate faith was a body of African spirituals–simple, poignant, and faith-filled–that remains with us today.

All that’s known of this beautiful, almost childlike melody is that it is of African-American Christian origin. Perhaps it was sung by weary, frighened voices on board slave ships or later as the slaves labored side by side in the fields. The song’s message of simple surrender to God’s loving care is certainly consistent with the slaves’ experience. And it is still capable–even these many years after the abolition of slavery–of rendering a tender, heartfelt emotion for those who raise its lovely strains to heaven.

As is the case with other African-American Christian folk songs, this one is meant to be sung by one or many singers and lends itself well to both unison and harmony. 

God is so good,
God is so good,
God is so good,
He’s so good to me!
 
He cares for me,
He cares for me,
He cares for me,
He’s so good to me!  
 

Fact: Gene Shay, cofounder and host of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, said, “In the strictest sense, [folk music] is music that is rarely written for profit. It’s music that has endured and been passed down by oral tradition. . . .Also, what distingishes folk music is that it is participatory–you don’t have to be a great musician to be a folk singer. . . .And finally, it brings a sense of community. It’s the people’s music.

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever. I Chronicles 16:34

God Is So Good — music provided, you provide the praise.

Praying For These

 If you would like to put your name in the drawing for the book, Free To Be Me by Betty Robison click HERE and leave me a comment. A drawing for the winner will be conducted Thursday night at 8:00 PM. So don’t wait too late to give me a shout.

Until then + + +
Kathie
Christian Living

Descriptive Words

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As I sit to write for our Wednesday time it has been a sweet Tuesday.

I’ve been catching up on my homework for my online class with Leah Adams and one of the Scriptural Addresses I visited today was 2 Timothy 3.  Allow me to share a word or two with you.  

2 Timothy 3 (New American Standard Bible) 1But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.   2For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,   3unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,   4treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,   5holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.   6For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses,   7always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.   8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.   9But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.

Difficult times will come. How well we know that is true! And who among this group of believers does not believe we are in the last days? What an accurate description of 2011 is recorded for us here in this passage of Scripture! Look again at those descriptive words just before the words ‘without self-control’.

Lovers of self.   Lovers of money.   Boastful.  Arrogant.  Revilers.  Disobedient to parents.  Ungrateful.   Unholy.  Unloving.  Irreconcilable.  Malicious gossips. 

How far do you have to look to see all this?  Then we read ‘without self-control’ and I am wondering if Father’s placement of these words in His Text is significant? Look what follows ‘without self-control’:

Brutal.  Haters of good.   Treacherous.   Reckless.   Conceited.    Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

Does a lifestyle of refusing to exercise self-control lead to brutality? An abhorrence for goodness? And on down the list?

I don’t know. But this I do know if it’s even a possibility, I’m ready to yield to the HOLY SPIRIT rather than my own fallen nature. How about you?

This reminds me a bit of Made To Crave.  If I lack self-control as to what I put in my mouth that nets me increased poundage. A lack of self-control as to what comes out of my mouth just might lead to me brutalizing the soul of another.   God forbid! May it never be!

And in the context of Scripture, it does go without saying that ‘self-control’ for the Christian is in fact actually ‘yielding’ to the HOLY SPIRIT in the given moment — right? I think so too.

I want to thank You, Father, for another day that You have loved on me and watched over me oh so carefully, and not just me but every son and every daughter that You have adopted by the Blood of JESUS. Thank You for showers of blessings, both literal and figuratively. And as our IDOKs settle in for this evening even before this devotion goes to post, I pray for peace, rest, ad refreshing.  We pray too for our IDOK Troops, thank You for their willingness to serve, and ask that You reward them richly and bring them home safe and sound. And I ask You, HOLY SPIRIT, to have mercy upon us and send us a moving of Yourself among us with conviction and power to repent all across this Land. And in particular, at this moment I am mindful of little ones who are sick and I ask You to heal them. And comfort the Mamas too as they tend them. Amen and amen in JESUS’ Name.

 Until Then + + +,
Kathie