oasisCHURCH

Songs of Solomon: The Writing Phase Is Nearly Complete

A short while ago I did a post here regarding a new project I had been working on.  The post was called "A New EP on the horizon".  I've since come to call this project "Songs of Solomon".  God has been incredibly gracious with me in this new endeavor.  When God first began prodding my heart with this project I have to admit that there was some sinful reticence within me.  These reservations were largely self-conscious items of concern.  The purpose of this project was to create Bible based, God-centered, love songs from husband to wife (and vice versa).  But I had to ask myself, "Is it okay to do something like this and then give it to other people?"  I worried that putting these songs in the hands of our fellowship, and for mass distribution on the internet, could have negative effects.   I don't want anyone to think of these songs like some kind of gimmick to give me an excuse to write sappy love songs.  My aim with this music, as is the aim of all the music that God has given to me, is to return it to him in worship for the sake of glorifying him.

To Married Couples:  I encourage you to take this music and allow it to take you straight to the Bible.  Open the Song of Songs and read it together.  Learn how God intends love between husband and wife to appear before Him and the world.  Learn how God intends sexuality to be conducted.  Some may read the words of Solomon and say, "Well that just sounds like some newlywed couple...wait till they've been together about 10 or 15 years...they won't be like that then...how much you wanna bet they won't be saying all that then?"  If you are such a person then please know (and I say this with sincere love) that the problem with your perception lies within your own heart, not the sentiments of Solomon.  In other words, if you no longer look upon your spouse in the way that Solomon and his bride see one another then something is not right.  In all things that you do, ground them in a firm biblical foundation so that you would not stumble constantly over sin and fall under condemnation.

To Singles:  Let these words wash your mind clear of any doubt in how God regards marriage, love, and sexuality.  Notice that the only acceptable context for sexuality that is given to us in the Bible appears here in the Song of Solomon.  That "proper context" is marriage.  O how I needed the words of Solomon when I was 17.  For so much of my non-married life I was completely wrong about God's design for sexuality.  I was equally as wrong about God's design for love.  When we're single we convince ourselves of so many things that aren't true.  Even when we're "involved" we convince ourselves of so many things that aren't true.  Sinfulness always clouds the issues that matter.  Too often single people and unmarried couples convince themselves of lies.  It's more difficult for the pervasiveness of sin to break through when you have the word of God steadfastly stored in your heart.  So I encourage you, if you're living in a sinful relationship, if you're committing rampant sexual sin, if you've perverted the concept of love in your mind, please stop.  Stop pursuing unrighteousness.  Seek the cousel of God in prayer and in His word.  Begin learning how it is that you can pursue righteousness in your life, especially your ineractions with the opposite sex.  Begin glorifying God with your whole self.   

Below you'll find four very rough tracks from the Songs of Solomon project.  There are only two more left to write and once I've completed writing them I'll rough them out on my digital recorder and then post them here on the net.  I just recorded vocals and acoustic guitar.  This will give you the idea of how the songs will eventually be.  Think of these recordings like reference sketches.  I use them to help me remember what I did that I liked so that I can re-capture it in later recording.  One of the songs (Beautiful) has a long break in the middle of it for an instrumental solo to be added later.  Again, that's just part of the sketching process.  Check these tunes out at will...feel free to let me know what you think...I'm always up for constructive criticism.  I hope you enjoy these works in progress...

Beautiful
Only You

Open to Me
Resting Shadows

More Gavin & Proud Family

More gladness. Nana Dreama, thanks for sending me these.

New Stewart Baby - Welcome Gavin McGwire

Born on May 22. He's 6 pounds, 1 ounce; 19 inches. Beautiful baby. Mommy and Daddy are doing well too (as you can see below). Grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and cousins are all very excited (as you can see).

 

Thoughts on Romans 15:1-7

¹We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. ²Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. ³For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." ⁴For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. ⁵May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, ⁶that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁷Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Romans 15:1-7)

 

Distinctions

When we read Romans 15:1-7 we encounter several difficult things. Perhaps one of the most difficult here is the idea of distinction between the “strong” and the “weak”. How carefully we must tread when we speak of language such as this. It is obvious that Paul draws a line of identification between those who are strong versus those who are weak. Paul speaks more about this in 1 Corinthians 14 by saying that each of us should be infants in evil but mature in our thinking. The book of Hebrews gives us yet more instruction about being “mature in our faith”. The author of Hebrews uses “milk” to describe the basic principles of God. The author then goes on to say that those who live on milk are “unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child” (see Hebrews 5:13). In the next verse of Hebrews 5 the author goes on to describe the nature of the mature by saying, “But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” It is obvious that the Bible supports the idea that there are believers who a mature (strong) and those who are like children in their thinking (weak). It is important to know that both “classes” of people are believers. However, the faith of one is more developed while the other is less developed.

 

The inherent danger in calling one weak and another strong is the temptation to become full of sinful pride and arrogance. It is for this very reason that we must be very leery to not think more highly of ourselves than we ought (Romans 12:3). Instead we should “think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” (also Romans 12:3) So how did Paul exercise sober judgment in Romans 15 when he said that the strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak? He did this by not seeking to please himself but rather seeking to please his neighbor for that the good of that person, for the act of building them up rather than tearing them down. We can only do this if we are pursuing righteousness with the wisdom of God churning within us, giving us the proper discernment at the proper time.

 

Before you look at any other person, begin by looking at yourself and asking the question, “Am I a weak or strong believer?” This can be very difficult because nobody likes to think of themselves as weak. Many people are convinced that just because they’ve gone to church pretty much all their lives that this means that they are strong and well practiced in their faith. Sadly, this is too often false. Sometimes the weakest Christians you’ll meet are those who have been going to church all their lives. You might ask, “How could that be possible?” Easy. The dominant church culture in America is training people what to think rather than teaching them how to use their own brains to explore the Bible to see what the Bible tells us we should think. Too many people rely too heavily on pastors and Sunday school teachers to tell them what God’s word is saying. Unfortunately, many believers feel that this is all the Bible time that they need in order to be a person seeking righteousness. The excuses are many in the area of not investing time in God’s word. My kids lives take up most of my time. I’ve got dishes to do. I’ve got laundry to do. I’ve really got to pick up the house. I need to mow the lawn. I just need a night to myself. When I hear these things I actually hear this, “Me, Me, Me, Me, and more Me!” People who know me might say, “That’s easy for you to say Chad, you don’t have kids. You don’t realize how different things become when you have children.” It’s true that I don’t yet have children, but I have several friends who have several kids and somehow they still manage to invest time in God’s word and a significant portion of that time is spent doing this with their children. Weirdly, these people, who I consider to be strong and mature Christians, seem to never spout the list of excuses that I often hear other Christian friends of mine saying. Why is that? I think the difference is that these families have learned to not just include God in their lives but rather make their whole lives revolve around God. The simple fact of the matter is that a copious amount of Christians lives their lives trying to fit God into their schedules. Some of you may be reading this and find yourself feeling an uncomfortable tug of realization that says “yeah, I do that”. It’s marks like these in our conscience that can help us answer the question, “Am I a weak or strong believer?”

 

I have been a believer for about thirteen years. For about 11 of those years I was a shamefully weak believer. During that time I was content to live only on “milk” (the basic principles of the oracles of God). I never attempted, or even felt that it was necessary to try to move on to solid food. I had no concept of what it meant to be a mature Christian. I didn’t even realize that there was a huge difference. I foolishly thought “believers are believers and some are just better studied than others.” The concepts of strong, weak, mature, and immature were things that were totally lost on my infantile Christian mind. The day that I realized this was a day of personal embarrassment for me. The stink of my personal arrogance began to suffocate me and it was during this time that I decided that I no longer wanted to be a weak, immature Christian. I wanted solid food. I was tired of being a sulking, sinful moron. Today, I feel like I have covered a lot of ground in spiritually maturing but I also realize that I have a ridiculously long path yet to walk. I know enough to know that my maturity is really just beginning. There are areas of my faith where I have to admit that I am yet weak and undisciplined. I see these and simply refuse to tolerate them. When you identify your personal failings as a Christian you should not sit around and do nothing. You should seek the wisdom of God’s word. You should seek the counsel of others. You must be intentional about your maturity otherwise it won’t happen.

 

How Should the Strong Deal with the Weak (…and vice versa)

We have an obligation to one another as Christian brothers and sisters to build one another up. When Paul says the “strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak” I don’t believe he meant that we should never challenge one another to grow in our faith. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” How can we truly sharpen one another if we’re never challenging one another to grow in the maturity of our faith? I don’t know that we could. There are a number of pitfalls to sharpening one another and I’d like to take some time to explore precisely what those kinds of things are.

 

(1) Overconfidence in Self-Assurance: It’s easy to become overconfident in thinking that we are much more spiritually mature than those around us. When we reach the peak of this kind of mentality the potential for sin drastically increases if we’re not focused on the sovereignty of God. We must always remember to humble ourselves. Heed the words of Biblical authors such as James who said, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” We do not want to be found guilty of boasting in arrogance at any point in time. Let the flood of God’s word deeply saturate you in the wisdom of the counsel of God. In this way you will know how to maintain a heart of humility. You will also learn how to teach others with the wisdom that comes from God. James describes this wisdom as pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

 

(2) Abusing Others With “Knowledge”: When a person feels confident in what they believe, they have a tendency to be stubborn and unmovable in their convictions. This is both a good and bad thing. For example, I would consider it a good thing if someone were unmovable in the conviction that Christ is Lord. I would consider it a bad thing if someone were unmovable in the conviction that summer is better than winter. Who is willing to draw lines of division over an argument as silly as that? Hopefully no one. When we have a conviction and we meet somebody with an opposing view we must pray that discernment would fill our hearts. Both persons need to first commit to actually listening to one another. Too often people butt heads over opposing viewpoints without really ever listening to what the other person is saying. That is the very reason why watching political talk shows makes me, quite literally, sick to my stomach. We very rarely see a positive example of two people discussing differences of opinion in a loving way. What is more common is the sight of one person abusing another with their “knowledge”. Sometimes people get so convinced that they’re right that they forget to use common sense. You can usually identify a fallacy in someone’s thinking. For example, I feel that the Bible makes God’s purpose of unconditional election quite plain. Yet I encounter many people who feel that’s not what God does. People say God does not predestine (determine in advance) those who will be conformed to the image of Christ. I look at a verse like Romans 8:29 (For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son) and say to myself, “Isn’t it so apparent what Paul is saying? He says things like this in more than one of his letters. Doesn’t that make the truth of these words evident?” I have yet to hear a scripturally based argument that would refute the idea of God’s purpose of election. Unconditional election is a conviction of mine. I believe that I see the scriptures correctly regarding this issue. However, I also realize the very palpable possibility that I could easily abuse people with my conviction. I could take my conviction to a place of sinfulness with alarming ease. If I stop conveying my conviction with the aim to build others up, then I will have officially arrived at the threshold of boastful arrogance. James reminds us, “All such boasting is evil.” (James 4:16)

(3) Failure to Receive: When I say “failure to receive” I’m referring to the all too common act of failing to receive the criticisms and critiques of others. The simple reality is that most people don’t like being disagreed with.  I’ve noticed that we Christians seem to get particularly miffed when people disagree with us. In my pre-Christian days I noticed that Christians got really bent out of shape when you suggested the possibility that a particular belief that they held on to was wrong. It’s was as though they didn’t even want to talk about it. Looking back on these encounters I never recall any Christian ever taking me to the Bible to show me where my deficiency of thinking existed. Now, as a Christian, I notice the same thing amongst fellow Christian brothers and sisters. Typically speaking, when people (Christian or non-Christian) aren’t really that well informed about something they tend to create uninformed opinions. Whenever these opinions are challenged, these individuals, who can’t really defend their stance all that well, usually resort to retaliatory tactics that advance the argument nowhere but down. I see this happen amongst Christians who are still in the “living on milk” stage of their spiritual maturity. As Christians we must learn how to receive the criticisms of our beliefs as an opportunity to illustrate the glory of God. We must acknowledge moments such as these to spiritually mature. That means we also have to be willing to accept the possibility that we could be wrong. This means that we also have to be willing to accept that the beliefs that we’ve held for a very long period of time could either be true, half-true, or not true at all. In other words, we must surrender any kind of sinful thinking or speech that could potentially hinder us from giving God glory, even in the process of maturing our faith. This is only made difficult by the fact that we hang on to selfish passions. “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:25) Instead of hanging on to that which is earthly in us, we should look in the law of God’s word, see what it demands from our lives, believe it and do it. This includes receiving the critiques of others. 

 

Hopefully these words have helped. I want to conclude with one final thought that you’ve already read. I simply want to remind you of the goal in all this talk.

 

⁵May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, ⁶that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁷Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Romans 15:5-7)            

Commentary: James 4:11-17

God is the One Lawgiver and the One Judge

¹¹Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if judge the law you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹²There is only one lawgiver and one judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor.”

The crucial statement in the quote above comes in verse 12. It is important for us to understand where we exist in relationship to God. We are very tiny and powerless compared to the immensity of God and His authority. The pivotal lesson here is not “we shouldn’t judge other people”, but rather the imperative lesson is that God is the one who possesses absolute authority and it is only He who understands how to exercise that authority in a fashion that is both righteous and just. Therefore, he is the only being anywhere who is perfectly righteous and perfectly just which thereby makes him the only true giver of law and judgment. This is the same God who is able to bring salvation through the grace of Christ. This is the same God who is also perfectly justified in pouring out his wrath against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of the world. Before we can really appreciate a statement like “who are you to judge your neighbor” we must first feel the density of the knowledge that God, who is able to both save and destroy, is the only lawgiver and the only judge. With that realization firmly locked in your mind you can now look back at verse 11 to see what it demands of us who call one another brothers and sisters in Christ.

We may have often thought, “Is there any real harm in speaking against another person? Is there really any harm done if I’m upset and say terrible things against another?” The answer to both is a big loud, thunderous, resounding yes and double yes. You don’t even have to be mad to speak evil against another. You could just be plain jealous and speak evil against another. There is an array of ways that we speak evil against others. Each one of these has the same damaging affect. When we speak evil against the law we put ourselves in a position. That position is one of judging the law. There is a contradiction in this. We cannot be judges of the law and do the law for the law says do not judge the law. The law is from God and is therefore holy and righteous and good (see Romans 7:12). When we speak evil against the law or judge the law we imbue ourselves, rather foolishly, with a wanton desire to possess the kind of authority that only God is capable of wielding. So when we speak evil against another, thereby speaking evil against the law and judging the same, we essentially say this of ourselves: “We are not only capable, but perfectly justified in executing law and judgment. We can say this because we are perfectly righteous as Christ was perfectly righteous. Therefore, we exercise sovereign authority as gods of our own little worlds when and how we see fit.” Now if this doesn’t sound like a scathingly heretical statement I don’t know what does. You might be thinking, “Yeah but that’s not how I feel when I speak against someone.” The simple fact of the matter is that whether you feel that way or not is completely beside the point. Speaking evil against another or judging another is a pure violation of biblical principle. When you choose to violate this principle you actively defy God in his sovereignty and basically say, “I can do anything you can do God.”

The standing question now is, “How do we avoid speaking evil against another and judging others?” As is the case with many things, the answer is surprisingly simple yet difficult at the same time because sin is so powerful and pervasive. The simple answer is: Be a doer of the word. If the word says don’t do “fill in the blank” then don’t do it. If the word says do “fill in the blank” then do it. Here some would be tempted to say, “Yeah but the problem with that is….” WAIT!!!! Stop those words right there. Take the rest of what you were about to say, wrap your hands around its sinful intentions, and choke it until it stops kicking. Far too many Christians, myself included, have become too adept at talking ourselves out of doing the word and adhering to the demands of it. We look at something and we say to ourselves, “Yeah that all sounds well and good but the reality of it is that it’s just not that easy.” Really? Why is that? What begins here is a myriad excuses. Yes I said excuses.  The brutal reality that most would rather not face is that almost every “reason” that we could come up with to not do what the Word says is really just a cover for selfish intentions. I know this to be true in my own life. I know it to be true in the lives of many of my closest friends, and they would admit to that.

What drives you to speak evil against someone else? Did someone call your wife a whore? She either is or she isn’t so why get upset with the person who said it. They were either stating fact or lie. If it’s a lie then what’s there to get in a twist about. “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.” (Romans 12:17) If it’s truth then the problem is not with the one saying it but rather with your wife. The same could be said in the case of an adulterous husband. In any case, regardless of circumstance, Romans 12:17-21 holds true. This really stretches us because our gut reactions and the appropriate biblical response doesn’t often line up when we’re in a state of spiritual immaturity regarding things like anger and slander. It’s moments like these when we most need to trust in the sovereignty of God and hide his word in our hearts (see Psalm 119:11) so that we would not fail in honoring him as we ought. We get the same advice from Psalm 119:10, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” There again is the simple answer. Guard your way in life according to the word that God has given you. Become doers of the word. This does not happen passively or without effort. Be prepared to struggle against the current. Be prepared to read, think, pray, and live steadfastly in what you have been taught by God’s infinite wisdom. Remember, we are not God. Therefore, who are we to judge anything at all?

We Are But A Vanishing Mist

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” – ¹⁴yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶As it is you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷So whoever know the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

When you read the subject heading to this section you may have thought to yourself, “Isn’t that a little bleak?” I don’t think it’s bleak at all. When James says that we “are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” I find it to be the exact kind of wisdom that the Disneyland of self-obsessed America needs to hear. Please don’t miss the heart of what James is trying to spell out for us. James is reminding us that our lives are short, barely visible, and passing by very quickly in the grand stage of time. This may be a very discouraging thought for some of you reading this. I would imagine it would be if that was your only focus. It’s true that our lives are short, some shorter than others. It is true that our lives are passing by quickly, as many of us are all too acutely aware. Yet if we fixate only on those things, if we hover our minds over those truths and nothing else, we will easily miss the will of God and the wisdom of his word. Let us not boast in our self-assurances. Our certainties, our carefully laid plans, our well thought out courses of action, if rooted in the desire to spend them on our own passions, will certainly come to dust in the end. We must be ever mindful of God’s will. We must be in constant submission to it every day. If we are not then we are busy boasting in our own arrogance by the example of our lives. James reminds us, “All such boasting is evil.”

So can we boast in anything at all in our lives? Sure. Galatians 6:14 says, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” What an odd statement is here in Galatians 6. Boast in the cross. Have you ever stopped to really think about that? Boast in the cross. Why not say boast in lynching? Is Paul saying that we should boast in torture and forms of cruelty? That would be very odd if that’s what he meant. But that’s not what he means. When Paul said that “be it far from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” he wasn’t saying boast in the horrors of the imagination of humanity. Rather, he was saying, “Boast in the riches of the grace of God which he displayed through his Son on the cross so that the sin of the world would be crucified and overcome in the flesh, so that God’s chosen would die to the things of the world and be raised with Christ in God’s favor.” In other words, boast only in what God has accomplished. You can’t do that if you’ve raised yourself in honor and praise. When James says that we are a vanishing mist, he does this only to remind us of the proper perspective that we should have of God. He is reminding us yet one more time that there is only one lawgiver and one judge. We can, in no way elevate ourselves to the status of authority which belongs only to God. To do so would be boasting in arrogance, which would therefore make us guilty of evil, which in turn would make us guilty of sin.

Know the right thing to do and then do it so that you would become a doer of the word and not just a hearer of the word who is deceiving himself or herself. Instead, pray for the steadfastness of God’s word to wrap you up in an undeniable hold. Seek only righteousness. Seek only to do what you have been instructed to do by God, the one true lawgiver and the one true judge.

 

In God I Trust

Last Wednesday something very special happened at the Stewart house church.  While the "adult" conversation rolled on in the living room Lara Perrin was busy composing something for us to read.  None of us could have had any idea that the words that God was pouring on her heart were precisely the words that we all needed to hear as we concluded our discussion that evening.  These are the words that Lara wrote...I think Lara is 9 now (sorry if I got that wrong Perrin family)....

In God I Trust
By:  Lara Perrin  Written:  4/25/07

In God I trust
In God I love
There is no other person
Than Jesus up above
He cares for everyone
He cares for you and me
And when we go to heaven
King Jesus we will see
He'll sheild us all from fear
And if we didn't have him
No sweetness would be here
And so we all should praise him
Because he is our king
And we all should bow our heads
Cause he rules everything

Praise God for how he revealed himself to us through this girl.  Thank you Lara for being faithful to the words that God puts on your heart.  Thank you for not keeping those words locked away.  Thank you for using them to remind us of the great king that is worthy of all honor and praise and glory forever.