Audio

Love and Worship

The thing I missed most in the hospital was music. Especially the hymns, gospel songs and love songs on my YouTube playlist. There are a few modern praise songs that also touch me deeply, but many of them tend to take “joyful noise” a little too seriously for my old ears.

Before going to sleep some nights, I very softly sang a love song to honor my wife without disturbing my room mate. I couldn’t think about our love for each other without remembering our mutual love for our Lord and His promise of eternal life together with Him some day. God is Love and all true love is a gift from Him.

I want to leave you with one of my favorite love songs written as a worship song.

Coming close together with a feeling that I’ve never known before in my life. God is not ashamed to be my Father or afraid to be my Friend. I don’t have the answers to the easy way He opens every door in my mind. But believing Him is easy when He tells me that it’s never going to end, and loving God is easier than anything I’ll ever do again.

By Faith

The 11th chapter of Hebrews begins with this definition of faith. “Faith is the reality of things we hope for and the evidence of things we cannot see.” What follows is a long list of old Testament heroes of faith, who by faith had good reputations.

I think one of the most interesting of them is Rahab the prostitute. How  would you like to be labeled by your sin like that? I sure wouldn’t. She lived in Jericho and protected the Jewish spies because she had faith that God was with them. She and her family were saved when the Jews attacked that city, but that wasn’t the end of her story. She married a Jewish man and is listed in the genealogy of king David and, of course, Jesus. Her faith took her a long way from her sin.

I am Jim Anderson, a sinner saved by grace, who has lived my life by faith for 69 years and has been writing this blog for nearly 7 years by faith. I don’t belong in the company of the people listed in that chapter of Hebrews, because my faith is based on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and His words recorded in the Gospels. Their faith was in God’s promise of what was to come.