Joey Francis

A friend gave me a CD about a week ago. This CD is by a group named “Tenth Avenue North.” I had never heard of them before. And As I listened to the CD the first time most of it caught my ears. It was filled with amazing words describing God.

As I continued to listen to it through the week, I realized that there was a song which surpassed all the rest, at least in my opinion. This song is called “Times.” I am posting a Youtube video below so you can hear it and see the lyrics. This song talks about the love that God has for us. It talks about how he loves us when we are lost, confused, cold, and feeling as if we are without His presence.

Enjoy…

We become Christians. In fact, we become born again. We know who God is. We push for him in everything, and we seek him day and night. But do we really?

I really think we don’t. At least I don’t. I know that there are many parts of my life that I need to become more transparent in. You may not have heard this before. Transparency, obviously is something clear, the more transparent something is the less you can see it. I want to be transparent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

You see. In our lives we have to live. But we often forget that God is control. God tells us to trust him for what we need. When we start worrying about ourselves instead of caring about others, we lose the effectiveness of the Gospel. We begin to show that we care more about ourselves than the well being and salvation of others. When Jesus Christ was crucified it wasn’t because he was walking around telling people about his problems, and he wasn’t sitting in a room by himself trying to figure out his next move. He was simply doing. He did what He came to do, and in doing so, He gave all the glory to the Father. He doesn’t ever talk about himself in a way which takes glory from the Father.

We talk in ways, very often, which take the glory away from God. It is all about us. If we never become transparent to the Gospel, we will never see God in this lifetime, because all we will see is ourselves. Trust me. Looking to God, and showing his love, compassion, and truth to others is far more rewarding that worrying about yourself.

Today I listened to a podcast from James McDonald. He mentioned this…

I am the master of my unspoken words, and the slave to those that should have remained unsaid. — James McDonald’s Mom

I really appreciate this, because it is very true. How often do we become forced to recover lost ground due to the things which we foolishly said? And how often are we able to be the stronger person, helping a situation improve, by simply not saying everything that comes to mind.

There was once a wise man. You may have heard of him. He put it this way…

Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent. — Proverbs 17:28 (English Standard Version)

Using an iPod for a Bible instead of a book. This is something I have thought long and hard about in the past, but I realized that although it didn’t feel the same to me, the content was still the same. Which in turn would keep consistency in the truth represented by the Bible and accuracy whether it were a book or an iPod, but… Tim Challies has thought a bit more about this, and I appreciate his take. I think it makes sense, and I encourage you to consider what he is saying in his post.

Read Tim Challies blog post by clicking here…

Today I was very excited to realize that I hadn’t lost the archives of my old blog. I began blogging in July of 2007. The way I think and the things I think about have changed a lot since my first post, but they are still very similar in many ways. It was very refreshing to read some of my older writing, and it was almost as if it brought me back to that moment when I was super uneducated about the Church but was just filled with zeal and passion. In fact it caused me to miss those days…

So below I have posted links to five good posts from old. Consider it a blast from the past…

• Jesus is God
• Christians and Slavery
• Voting for Who?
• Being a Good Steward
• Why Now?
  

… Also, if you would like to check out other writings of mine from the past, there is a list of archived links to the right. Enjoy!