When I first started blogging, I used to have a post every Monday called “Sunday Recap.” I miss doing these types of posts as it causes me to reflect on the great things that God did and allowed me to take part in during worship on Sunday morning (and Sunday evening, now). A few blogs I’m reading have been calling them “worship confessionals.” I’m not sure what they mean by that, so I’m going to keep mine titled “Sunday Recap” for now. Here’s the recap from yesterday:

Worship set:

• Pre-service song: Marvelous Light by Charlie Hall
• Strong Tower – Peter Furler/Steven Taylor
• The Solid Rock – Bradbury
• Before the Throne of God Above – Steve and Vicki Cook
• Speak, O Lord – Getty/Townend

Every once in a while, the music and the message just click. That happened during worship yesterday. Pastor Wade talked about the fall of man from Genesis and then closed the message by talking about guilt and what to do with it when Satan throws it at us in various forms. We sang the second and third verses of “Before the Throne” as a reprise and the first words of the second verse are “When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of my guilt within, upward I look and see Him there who put an end to all my sin.” That’s powerful stuff.

Sunday evening was Truth Project at small group and I was able to lead worship in a small group setting for the first time. Nerves made me move through the teaching portion too quickly, but I think there was a good spirit in the place (well, obviously there was, since the Holy Spirit was present :-). Like we talked about in the study, though, our minds were engaged and in tune with God’s presence, so I know He was glorified!

Today is Valentine’s Day. Many people today might feel very loved by someone in their life and find satisfaction and comfort in that love. Many people might feel lonely and depressed, wondering if love even exists. However, for both people, earthly love will fade and never satisfy. I was pointed to a hymn this week that I had never heard of before that puts God’s Love in some amazing imagery that really opened my eyes to its vastness – “The Love of God.” Check it out –

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

What absolutely amazing words! If you’re feeling loved today, know that His love is greater than any earthly love you could imagine. If you’re feeling unloved today, let these words fill you with hope and peace.

Two interesting things about this hymn: The first is that the third verse is adapted from a Jewish poem, Hadamut. You can read more about it here. Secondly, there is a great recording of this hymn by Mercy Me on their Spoken For album.

*I will be sharing my answers to yesterday’s questions tomorrow, as I thought highlighting this hymn would be perfect for today.

We started going through Focus on the Family’s “The Truth Project” on Sunday night with a small group from our church and boy was it amazing. Just from the first lesson on “What is Truth” I know that this will be a highly intellectual and thought-provoking study. I was also able to meet some new people and am looking forward to getting to know them better.

I find it more than a little sad that so many Christians will defend their faith with, “Well, I believe it because the Bible says so, so that’s that.” While this is completely true and I agree that the Bible is the absolute sole authority on anything and everything, how does a defense like that stand with someone who doesn’t believe that any of the Bible is true? It doesn’t work.

We need to be able to think and think well. We need to understand philosophy, history, ethics, anthropology, science and more. We don’t need to be experts in all of these things, but we need to at least have a grasp on them so that we can make clearer cases for our faith to people who trust in all these fields but have no trust in the Bible. I think “The Truth Project” will be doing just that.

In light of today being Darwin Day (ack – how in the world did we ever come to this??), it’s really good for us to know exactly what we believe and how to defend it intelligently. In light of worship ministry, we need to know why in the world we worship God as well. Yes, the Bible tells us to worship Him, but we need to understand why in order to have more intimate times of worship with Him.

Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?

Well, as many of you might have noticed, my blogging has been a little sporadic lately.  That’s because it’s been hard to find time to blog.  Not only has it been hard to find time to blog, it’s been hard to find time to get into God’s Word, hard to find time to excercise and hard to find time for some other important things.  But….

It hasn’t been hard to find time for my daughter!

Here’s the deal though:  as much as I want and absolutely need to spend time with her, if I’m not spending regular time in God’s Word to know how to be the right father to her by being in love with my Savior, my time spent with her is without eternal purpose.  Oh how I long for the day when she will say, “Dad, I love that I grew up with someone who spends every day in the Bible and knows God.”

I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions and it is a bit late considering the date on this post, but I am going to make a goal to begin reading my Bible every day again.  I have a yearning in my heart to soak up His Word, and it shouldn’t be hard to find time to do it.

Hello all!  Now that the holidays are coming to a close and I’m sort of settling in to life with a new baby I’ll be resuming blogging full-bore next week.

And due to overwhelming response to the music theory series, I’m going to keep going with more practical music theory tips.  Thanks for the links and comments everyone, I’m so glad you’ve found these posts helpful.

Upcoming posts:

• Key signatures
• Chord progressions and vamping
• More 7th chords
• How to use theory + your ear to learn songs