Rain

It has been raining for what feels like days on end now and I'm still not used to it, nor do I own an umbrella.

Sometimes I like to read articles and lyrics for my devotions - of course I have to make sure that I'm not just reading stuff for fun but asking God to speak to me through it. Lately I've been reading some stuff by a band called mewithoutYou. Some lines stood out, like:

"He fills up the ponds as He empties the clouds
Holds without hands and He speaks without sounds"
and
"And just as a flower and its fragrance are one
So must each of you and your Father become"

Both lines are from their song called "The King Beetle on a Coconut Estate."

Another song that caught my eye (or ear...? whatever, you get it) was called Empire by a band called As Cities Burn.

"Cause I was a pharisee,
I never saw my need for grace;
Then your love came to me
stood next to mine, and I saw that I was poor.

Show me I was poor.
Show us we are,
show us we are.

Glory, glorious.
We are glory, glorious.
Not from what good we have done
but from being the least."

Be feeding yourselves with music that glorifies God, guys! Too often we can just turn on the radio, "ignore the lyrics"... you know. Something that scared me a little one day though was turning on the music I listened to a few years ago only to find that I knew all the words - and they DEFINITELY didn't glorify God at all (to say the least)!

Recently I was at a service and the pastor had said, "Is that really what Christ bled and died on the cross for?" Now I find that question coming back to me on a regular basis... Did Christ die for me so that I could get by asking for his grace and forgiveness without an ounce of effort to change on my part? So that I could watch T.V. and play video games? I'm not saying that media is evil,


but if I'm doing that more than loving people in the name of Jesus Christ, something is wrong... desperately wrong.

Oh, and if you haven't heard of Bradley Hathaway... man. Look him up.
I suggest "The Hug Poem".