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I've been thinking lately about the difference between things that are sacred and things that are secular.  We Christians love to put things into neat little boxes. I think this somehow gives us a sense of security and assuredness that we are living our lives correctly.

With music, art or books we try especially hard to place each person's creative work into the appropriate category. Of course, to do this we need rules - lots of rules. Here are some examples:

-If you sing about Jesus, then you are a "Christian artist"
-If your book is sold in Lifeway, then you are a "Christian author"
-If your CD does not mention Jesus or God or isn't performed by a "Christian artist" (see definition above), then it's "secular" music
-If your art doesn't include a cross, a depiction of Jesus or some other religious symbol, then it's "secular"
-If you sing music on Sunday morning at church, you have a "sacred" job, but if you sing music on Friday night at a local pub, you have a "secular" job.

The problem with our rules is that they are based on our own ideas and therefore change over time. I remember 20 years ago all the outcry over drums in a worship service because "drums were secular and therefore of the devil"!  I also remember the outcry against Jars of Clay when the song "Flood" crossed over and took off at mainstream radio and a bunch of unsaved people started coming to their shows. Oh no!

Psalm 24:1 says, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The earth and all it's people belong to him."

If everything belongs to God, who are we to say what is not sacred? God says "I made that. It's for my glory. Therefore it is sacred to me." What if there was just one category and we viewed life as if everything was sacred? How would this affect the way we did business? Or the way we treated our lost neighbor? Or how we appreciated someone's creative work.

From guest blogger Audrey Assad

I’ve read of Beethoven that, when his hearing was lost, he sawed the legs off his piano and laid its body down on the floor; then, with his head pressed against the floorboards, he pounded on the keys in an effort to hear the notes. He continued to write his symphonies even when one of his greatest tools—his hearing—was taken from him. Passion and perseverance are an explosive combination.

I should pray with that kind of unquenchable desire, especially when it sounds like God is silent.  Like Beethoven, I ought to press my ear to the floor; I ought to search  for the sound of His footfalls. I am “...a deaf man with my ear to the ground, listening for what You say.”

I sort of love it that God dances with us like this. He weaves like the shuttle on a loom, coming close, pulling back, and irresistibly drawing all of us little threads into the tapestry created by His dynamic movement.  By it we learn to ache for Him when He feels far off, and cherish Him when He draws near to us.

Even when God is whispering instead of shouting, He is relentless in His pursuit of the human heart.  Francis Thompson’s beautiful poem says it better than these lyrics ever could. 

“I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vista’ed hopes I sped; and shot, precipitated,
A-down Titanic glooms of chasm’ed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy
They beat—and a Voice beat more instant than the feet...
“All things betray Thee, Thou who betrayest Me.”
(excerpt, The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson)

Checkout the song "Breaking Through" on Audrey Assad's new CD The House You're Building!

Guest post from Audrey Assad

Psalm 139:11-13
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night
around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine
like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost
being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

One of the strange things about God’s watchfulness is that, unlike any human vision, His is not only rich in foresight (knowing each thought before it is in your mind, every word before it is on your tongue) and full to the brim with the knowledge of each past event in every human life lived on this planet, but also incisive in its searching--He is witnessing *you* -- not just your actions or the things you do.  He witnesses not only the things you fear and loathe, the things you love and sacrifice for, or the inherently stamped goodness from creation and the lingering sin that combine to form your modus operandi (the way you work), but also the deepest essence of who you individually are.  He knows the you that nobody else knows or could ever fully know; the you that you yourself cannot understand; the you that is a mystery to yourself.   It is this “you” that God is the sole, perfect, entire witness to—you are seen and taken in at a glance by your Creator—your organs and your nerves and your pulses, the tiny hopes you dare not voice, the massive, entrenched fears you dare not face—He witnesses all of it, and loved you before you ever lived it. 

By witnessing your life and who you are, He stamps it with an irrevocable dignity and worth--you matter to God.  You matter.  You are precious precisely because the most important Someone in the universe treasures you. God is witnessing you, watching you, seeing you, because He values you--and because He values you, your value is immeasurable.

In each of our hearts there are places only Christ can venture.  Christ is the great revealer--only in knowing Him and entering into the reality of His knowledge of us can we know ourselves truly.  Christ reveals man to himself.

It is strange to be always watched--always seen--always illuminated.  (we like to hide, don’t we?)  But this is the very source and also the goal of human intimacy--to reflect the Mystery of God’s watchfulness, and the equally beautiful Mystery of Christ’s humble willingness to be witnessed and fully known by the Father.  In fact, this knowing and being known, this Sonship, was and is Christ’s primary identity.  He is first Son, then Savior--His redeeming stems from His relationship to the Father.

Let the closeness of God put your soul at rest about how much you are valued.
Let Him watch You--there is kindness in His eyes.
He knows you better than you will ever know yourself, and you are infinitely priceless—created, seen, and known by God. 

Press into this Mystery.

You can listen to "Known" here.

From this month's guest blogger, Audrey Assad -

It seems there is a primordial belief in every human heart that this life is not the pinnacle of existence.  All religious walks reflect this instinct in some fashion, I think; the teaching of afterlife is not exclusive to Christianity.  Man generally believes in some form of the Beyond, however he may choose to describe it, or whatever his theology may be.  I’ve long believed this to be one of the things the writer of Ecclesiastes meant when he wrote that “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end”. (Ecclesiastes 3:9) .  Eternity has been woven into the fabric of our being. 

C.S. Lewis insightfully describes this instinct.  From his book, Mere Christianity; “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”  And St. Augustine of Hippo, hundreds of years before Lewis ever put pen to paper, encapsulated this very thought a little more simply in the quote from which the song Restless takes its inspiration; “You have made us for Yourself, oh God; and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” - St. Augustine, the Confessions of St. Augustine, book 1.

This song, Restless, draws a parallel between two seemingly perpendicular ideas; firstly, that God is worthy of our praise, that He dwells in our praises, and that He is the keeper of our hearts; and secondly, that even though we know and believe these things, we are still a restless people. You would think that if we believed the words we sing in worship every day, we would have found—and applied—the cure for our restlessness long ago.  But you see, rather than being a reason for self-hatred or a source of shame, the restlessness of the human heart actually points to the great and creative Love of God, who designed us to desire Him.  How good He is to instill in us a longing for the only One who can satisfy and save us.  And it is right that we should still feel that longing, even though we now know Him; for we are not home yet.  He is the Way, to be sure, but also the destination; and until we are in glory with Him, the restlessness remains.

Your restlessness is an open door to worship, not a closed one.  You can praise God in and through your restlessness without guilt; for merely by existing, your restlessness reveals the heart of God, and His great love for you.

Listen and learn "Restless" here.

Displacement is one of those scientific principles we learned in high school. It’s the reason your full bath overflows when you get in it. Or the reason a ship will float. But this week I learned another application for this principle that really impacted me.

The example used was a glass of clear clean water. The speaker took the glass of water and began to pour various things into it like mustard, vinegar, hot sauce, etc. Each item represented a sin that we could fall into: anger, envy, lust, greed, etc. And as he poured each item into the glass, it forced a little more of the clean water out until eventually all that was left was a nasty cocktail full of all these “sins”.

“Now”, he said, “let’s try and get just the anger (hot sauce) out”. Obviously it was impossible to remove any one “sin” from the glass. Everything was mixed together. “So how can we get back to our clean glass of water?” he asked.

Here’s where our displacement theory comes into play. The only way to get the “sin” out of the glass was to pour in more clean water. As the speaker poured pitcher after pitcher of clean water into the glass, it eventually forced out all the impurities until finally it was once again a clear clean glass of water.

So what’s the spiritual meaning? The way that we become more like Christ is not by trying to get all the bad stuff out of our lives. I’ve been down this road and ultimately you’ll end up failing to change or simply exchanging one sin for another.

No, the way to lasting change is by filling ourselves continually with the Holy Spirit of God. The bible tells us that light and dark cannot exist together. The same way that sin grieves the Spirit, the Holy Spirit grieves sin! When we repent, confess and allow ourselves to be filled with the Spirit, the sin in our lives has to go.

But we are leaky vessels. We need to be as the Scripture says “continually filled with the Holy Spirit”. How about getting on your knees today, confessing your sin and asking the King of Kings to fill you with his clean and clear Spirit? It’s our only hope of lasting change.

Check out these powerful brand new devotional videos from Matt on various themes that are woven into his newest CD Alive Again.

http://mattmahermusic.com/journey/

Paul writes in Romans 12:2 "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind".

There is a "renewing" of our minds that happens and we meditate on God's Word.

"Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received!" 2 Peter 1:3 The Message

What a great reminder today that it's not what we "do" that pleases God, but that we know and love His son Jesus. That's good news!

Interestingly enough, as I write this, I just received a visit at my door by a Jehovah's witness. They handed me a booklet on what the Bible really teaches. It's a list of extra things we must do to please God. How sad.

I'm so glad that my hope is in Christ alone and not in my ability to please God. Let's pass this invitation along to those who are not already at the party.

Recently I received an interesting question for an upcoming panel discussion:

What is and is not the "new song" referred to in Isaiah 42:10 and Psalm 96:1?

Interesting question. I've heard many worship leaders quoting these Scriptures, mostly before they introduce a new song to the congregation. However, digging a little deeper into these verses reveals that there's something deeper being said.

What is the "new song"?
-Both of these verses in context are talking about the coming Messiah, so the "new song" should be a song centered on Christ.
-Under the law (old song) believers were justified by the sacrifice of animals, but our "new song" should be about grace through faith in Christ.
-2 Cor 5:17 says we believers are a "new creation", so our "new song" should be sung from a redeemed position and not people still awaiting rescue.
-The "new song" is both historical and prophetic regarding Christ. He has come and he is coming back!
-The "new song" is meant for every believer regardless of age, ethnicity, language etc.
-The Scripture encourages us to join together as a church to sing.

What is not a "new song"
-This is tricky, but we know based upon the Scriptures that it is not referring to a newly created musical work. We can sing "Amazing Grace" as our "new song".
-It's also not a style of music. I recently about a church that only allows hymns and southern gospel songs to be sung in their church. This is wrong on several fronts.
-I believe the "new song" is to be centered on the completed work of Christ. Songs that are purely historical, while having a purpose, would not be considered a "new song".
-I believe the "new song" must have lyrical content. A symphony is beautiful, but the purpose of the "new song" is to tell the Gospel and shine a light on Christ.
-It's the song of the redeemed. Only we believers can sing a "new song" to the Lord.

I know I've missed many things here. Feel free to add your thoughts.

Be blessed and sing a new song to the Lord today!