Emotional-Based Christians

Hey again. I have been thinking a lot about the church and about the bride of Christ after listening to Derek Webb's new CD (which by the way is excellent!) and I thought I would post a new entry of what I have been thinking about recently.

Is the Christian faith based off of emotions or feelings? Is the reason why we are here to make others feel happy and comfortable? What is the worlds perspective of Christians? Quickly manipulated by feelings? Easily swaying from truth to truth? Post-modern?

There are so many weak churches. Churches according to II Timothy 4:3 that love their ears being tickled. They don't want teachers to teach deep truth about Scripture but interesting fairytale stories about an emotional man that loved all, named Jesus. Their view of Jesus is the caring man that never made anyone upset and died for everyone! Yes, these are real and true characteristics of Christ, but did he not drive merchants out of the temple? In a Godly anger keep in mind. Did he not call the pharasees a brood of vipers? White washed tombs yet on the inside rotting graves? The church and its people have become emotional-based Christians. They do not want to make anyone angry. They will not stand up for the truth if it may cause strife.

I use the word "emotional." I am referring to feelings (Whatever feels good.) In the sense that they disregard truth in areas to make others happy and feel good. It is fine to be emotional people but not to let the emotions take over us. If we were not emotional or "without feeling" we would not care for souls as Christ did.

"E-B Christians" (if you will) tend to make God this teddy bear. He is there to hug and squeeze and we take His wrath out of the picture. God is a God of love, yes, but boy is He a God of justice and wrath also. When we meditate on His wrath we take a stronger approach to our faith. A Christian should love and not beat the Bible over non-believers heads but if the churches goal is to make others feel comfortable where does persecution come in? If there is no persecution there is NO outward display of Christ. THEY WILL HATE YOU!!! We hate the word hate. Churches in our day think they must let everyone in and except all without explaining sin and hell to them or it might send them away. We make this "Disney-church" where the sermons are short, quick and easy, and the focus is fun. It is a charismatic approach to something deeply significant= the bride of Christ. As Derek Webb puts it in his song "Wedding Dress"

"I am a whore, I do confess,
I put you on just like a wedding dress and I
Run down the aisle.
I'm a prodigal with no way home,
I put you on like a ring of gold and I
Run down the aisle.

This is totally true! The church must be pure, spotless, and a holy bride, yet we have whores and harlots. We have masked this beauty with money and power, and yet churches choose to be the bride that gives her body away to lust after she says she is married to Christ. We cannot become charismatic Christians that get swayed to-and-fro from unBiblical doctrine that just sounds good. WE CANNOT SETTLE FOR LESS, WE CANNOT COMPROMISE OUR FEELINGS FOR TRUTH, WE CANNOT BECOME EMOTIONAL-BASED CHRISTIANS.


Thanks for your time.

Music Pick of the Week

Hey, all...
I have been away from the computer for awhile, and I wanted you all to dwell on the last one for awhile. Just kidding. I hope you take it to heart though and think about it. So.. Music Pick of the week. As you can see I moved the pic to pick, seeing as a pic is usually an abreviation for picture, so I changed it.

Ok. Music pick, I have so many albulms to pick from!!! There are so many cool cd's I can give you guys. Let me think. Ok, Joss Stone: The Soul Sessions. This is a great cd! It is smooth funk with the amazing voice of Joss Stone. This 17 year old can sing! She is crazy and she has got a great band behind her. Great songs that you might recognize and just a great altogether sound. It's a great cd I totally recommend it.

More music to come~

P E A C E

The music of our days.

I have been thinking about this issue and I decided to write a blog about my thoughts. Here we go.

There is great music out there, but some music must be left untouched. The world wants us to get sucked into their good music yet they put in lyrics that do not fall in harmony with God's views. So the question is: If the music is great and catchy but has bad lyrics, do we still listen? I say NO! Not at all. There are many questions that I hear and that I want to cover in this blog.

1. "Yes it has bad lyrics but I don't listen to them, I only listen to the music." This is a horrible excuse. We are forced to listen to the lyrics when we listen to music with lyrics. Even if we can't understand them, IT DOES NOT MEAN THEY GO AWAY. We are choosing to listen to the lyrics when we put on that bad song. As much as we think we can "block them out," It really doesn't work. Watch a movie and turn off the sound. It's hard and pretty annoying.

2. "I know the whole CD is dirty but I fast forward the bad parts." What another lame excuse. You have to know where the bad parts are before you have to fast forward them for yourself. I think we all struggle with this. To fast forward a song for yourself? This is pointless. Just let the song run, you know what you are fast forwarding. The song is bad, just skip it. If you look at the question, it is saying, "The whole CD is bad." I guess you can't skip the song. Burn the CD!!!

3. "What if the whole CD is bad, but one song is good?" Hopefully you don't buy the CD. If you do BUY the CD take it home, burn it (copy it, or just light it on fire) and get the one good song on a separate CD. Simple, but you are putting yourself in a bad position letting other people see that you have the CD and or you are supporting the artist's view by buying it.

4. "The CD was given to me, so I listen to it and except it so that I don't make that person feel bad." My thoughts? Throw it away. Even if it is a gift, throw it away. It's better to remain pure before the Lord and make someone feel bad, then to please man and keep the CD.

5. "I have the CD, but I don't listen to it." What if I told you I had dirty magazines in my room, I just don't look at them. Would you believe me? Would you think, "Why does he have them in the first place?" Probably. It is the same exact thing. What does it appear like to the world when they see us have a bad CD? It weakens our testimony.
6
. "The CD is amazing musically, but it is either full of swear words and sexual innuendoes." Destroy the CD!!!!!!! There is better music out there!!! "If your right arm causes you to stumble cut it off." Remember this verse? We must not conform to this world! We must be transformed into God! I am not saying (and get this) that we must not and cannot listen to secular music. We totally can! There are so many clean, good, secular bands out there! Just have discernment. Think about the music you listen to, and ask yourself these questions:

Would I play this for my parents?
Would I play this for my friends?
Would I play this for Christ?

We all struggle with music. It sucks us in! I struggle with loving music regardless of the lyrical content but we must be concerned about these issues! Listen to good music! Listen to good secular, listen to good Christian. Just be concerned that you are not getting sucked into the idea that all music is good and what you put in your head does not matter. You know the CD's I am talking about. Get rid of them! If that song comes on the radio that you know is dirty, change it. If your friend wants to play that dirty CD that you know you can't listen to, stand up for your faith and shut it off.


Thanks for reading and being interested in what I have to say.

A New Word

I was thinking about how the internet has so much garbage and how it is really hard to find good stuff on it and then.... A thought struck me....... And I thought.....

S I N N E R N E T !!! Brilliant!!! I thought you guys would appreciate a new word. It's like internet but with si... Nevermind.

And remember:
More than one moose is always moosen. A flock of moosen.
--- Brian Regan.

Music Update

Hey all. The first part of the post will be serious and then the second part will be my music pic of the week, (or day, whatever).
Elvin Jones, one of the most famous drummers in the world (second best to Buddy Rich in my view) has died today. He has been one of the most recorded drummers in jazz and funk. He was a great man and he died an old age. I think he was about 78 or maybe 80, I might be wrong but it was a sad lost. He is my favorite jazz drummer and I have had the priveledge of watching, meeting, and talking with him. I pray that God somehow took a hold of his heart in someway. Who knows... I am lucky to have his autograph.

Besides that, music and much more music. Let me think. Gavin DeGraw=Chariot. Great albulm! It's practically brand new and it's got some great hooks. I don't know if I would go to the store and spend about 20 bucks on it though, check and see if Itunes has it. It's right in the pocket and Gavin has a wicked rad voice. Enjoy listening and always have discernment!!

Much love and Tunes.

P E A C E

Music Pic of the Week

Hey all....3....

Props to SkHigg for holdin down the fort at the one28 web-site. Keepin it real, takin no prisoners. I like blogs. I dont think my blog will ever equal up to the glory of Sk's or Mluggs or Jesses but, I'll try to post my thoughts. I dig this whole blog thing though. So how is the world out there? My blogs will probably be different than the others though. Cause I will probably talk about completely unimportant things. Lawn mowing almost moves into that category but... Like whatever things. I will start a "david's pic cd collection" eachweek. Cool? So all 5 of you reading out there, (who probably already have these cause I have raved about em)here it is:

Philidelphia Experiment (Self-titled)

Im all about spreading the underground. This cd is crazy, wicked, awesome! I recognized it cause I know the bass player, Christian McBride. The whole cd is in the pocket! Tight bass and piano combo's, solid drummer, and a little b-3 action in the mix. Its tight. This is what the cd says:

"The Philidelphian experiment can be said without fear of contradiction that you will be drawn into the experiment and when you're done you will just slightly different than before you started,

You will increasingly find yourself thinking deeply about democracy, cheesesteaks, boxing, soft pretzels in a whole new light. Do not fight the feeling, relax and let the Experiment do its thing. We've been getting brown over here for quite some time, but for you straight-off-the-tour bus types, 'Welcome to Philidelphia-Yo, we got your back.'" I dig it. If you like straight ahead funk/hiphop/jazz, you'll love it. Hey, if you want to check it out, find me with my iPOD and I'll give you a taste of the pretzel of funk dipped in a hot sauce of "soul deep" cheeze. Deep love and much music listening!!!!

And always remember:

"IF YOU DON'T JUMP OFF THE BRIDGE, YOU WONT KNOW THE FEELING OF THE ROPE SNAPPING BACK AND DISLOCATING JOINTS YOU DIDNT KNOW YOU HAD."

If we don't have any enemies
We don't have any character.

I'll Be Ok

I hear He's coming to this town,
That He seeks to save men.
I hear they call Him the One,
And still be their Friend?

But I push for one glimps of Your eyes,
And I'll push through this crowd.

Allow me to touch the hem of Your cloak,
And I'll be ok.
Allow me to breathe the air that you breathe,
And I'll be ok.

I get tossed and I get pushed,
I can't even stand on my feet.
So I'll crawl next to You,
And I hope You see me
But You let down Your cloak,
And I touch a Holy Lamb

I'll take that look in Your eye,
But I begin to cry.

But why would you heal
Such a man, You know who I am.
Why would You give
Life, to that already dead?

Allow me to touch the palm of Your hand,
And I'll be ok.
Allow me to feel safe in Your arms,
And I'll be ok.
I'll be ok.

This song represents Christ coming to this earth to save men and die for them. This is a broken man pushing through the Christ to be healed spiritually not physically. I wanted to make man so low and filthy to be crawling to Christ. We are asking for Christ to heal us, not just to walk up and take the healing and leave. Just the hem could change us, just His breath. I hope this encourages you to not take your relationship with Christ lightly, that each day we should crawl to Him and meet Him on our knees.
Thank you for your time.

Our Defense

Our society seems to breathe it,
When we all hope to see it.
We choose to come accustom,
To this abomination.
With degrading, times are changing, it's easier to see.

So we must..

Put up our defense
Put up our defense against
These images so thick and we will.

It's merely imitation for our stimulation
It's merely our emotions that provoke us,
To who we are and who we aren't

We'll try to stay away,
Even if our walls are fallin down.
We will tame,
We will tame this beast of lust.
We will tame,
We can change this sin of us,
And we'll hide in Him.

For the future,
For the dreams,
For decisions,
Left to be.
For the gospel,
For the souls,
For the body
For the temple.
For the hopes,
and for the goals,
For the wise,
For the simple.

For God, but for God,
For-gotten God.

I wrote this song about how we all struggle with lust. I think lust takes over us and we forget God all together. The end shows why we need to stay away from lust. All our goals and hopes. I hope the lyrics dig deep into your hearts and be encouraged to defeat sin.
Thank you for your time.

My Very First Post

Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I picked this verse for my very first post because it is my favorite verse, and why not just start with a Bible passage? More to come in the near, bright, future. See you on the flip flop later!
P E A C E