Funny the things you run across in your life. And then remember years later.
One day, many years ago, I was listening to a cassette (remember those, kiddies??) of the greatest hits of the Guess Who. (Extra points if you remember them!) One of their "greatest hits" is a song called "Hang On To Your Life." Pretty good song, if I remember correctly. Anyways, at the end of the recording on this cassette, the sound continued past where it normally cut off on the radio edit. I heard this guy's voice reciting this:
"They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death."
"Wow," I thought. "That's kind of cool."
Later on, I don't know how much later, I happened to be reading Psalm 22. When I got to verse 13, I had one of those "Aha!" moments as I realized that the Guess Who had been quoting Psalms.
Weird.
We're going on a mini-vacation this morning, so I won't be back for a few days.
I'm leaving with this quote from John Piper's A Godward Life regard the definition of a Christian.
"A Christian is a person living under the constraint of Christ's love. Christianity is not merely believing a set of ideas about Christ's love. It is an experience of being constrained by that love--past, present, and future."
This goes strongly against the traditional teachings of the evangelical church that says all you have to do to be saved is believe. James, the brother of Jesus debunks that theory in the Bible. Yet we teach it wholeheartedly.
Ironically, I'm typing this under an ad banner for some fool's diary who says that "God is pretend." Sadly, there will be those who listen to his misplaced "wisdom." The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."
TTFN