Blessed Assurance

It's late, but we do have a music podcast this week. This is an on-the-fly retake of the old Fanny Crosby standard Blessed Assurance. Enjoy, and happy weekend!

Click here to listen to Improv on Blessed Assurance.

Labels: Music, Podcasts

posted by Zookeeper Cat @ 11:44 PM 0 Comments  

Getting Unlost

Today's podcaster: Cat, Lazy Creek Zookeeper

After attending a large gathering to sing religious songs, I came away discouraged and distressed. It seemed strange to be in a room full of people I knew, watching them sing songs about teachings I knew many of them didn't agree with or live by. I have no problem being in a room full of people with different concepts of God, as long as everyone feels free to be honest about it. But one major problem I have with the church culture is the enforcement of "nicey-pie" syndrome.

This simply means that people are expected to pretend they agree for the sake of looking like they get along. Not getting along is being a bad Christian. It doesn't matter whether we really get along, as long as we try to make the rest of the world think we do.

It feels like a form of fraud. It is pure public relations, intended to deflect criticism of the Christian religion rather than honestly deal with the obvious conflicts and problems. The world is not fooled, either.

I think we can do better than that. I believe in a God who is a person, not just a force or a part of the universe's fabric. I think this God is required by simple logic to be infinitely everything - infinite love, infinite justice, infinite reasonableness. Infinite relationship.

I think this God gives us answers to our problems, answers that are infinitely smarter than what we come up with. We're free to choose His thoughts or our thoughts. But we usually choose our ways, because the cost of fixing things is to give up pride in our religious accomplishments, our comfort, our self-assurance. The cost is to give up our cherished ideas and beliefs, and to believe instead in God and in His ideas. His definition of Himself.

I get in trouble whenever I bring up this matter. Not from the rest of the world, which often expresses the same sentiments about the state of Christianity. No, I get shushed by Christians.

But I'm not a "Christian." I don't come from a church background. All I am is a believer in God as revealed in the Bible. And I must say, I don't like being judged on the assumption that I'm "judging others" out of some kind of arrogance or lack of love.

So, on Sunday evening after that religious concert, I sat down and talked out my feelings. I wanted to make my actual tone heard, not just my words. Here's a little bit of the story of how I came to believe the things I now believe.

Click to listen to How To Get Unlost.

Labels: Podcasts, Talk

posted by Zookeeper Cat @ 2:29 PM 0 Comments  

Podcast En Espanol

The kids learned this song from their Auntie several years ago, and they've been singing it ever since. They love singing in different languages.

Happy Saturday, everybody!

Click here to listen to "I Have a Friend/Yo Tengo Un Amigo"

Labels: Music, Podcasts

posted by Zookeeper Cat @ 11:03 PM 0 Comments  

My God Has But One Heart

Since we were very busy this past week with the kids' dance exams, we didn't have time to pull together a recorded song. Instead, we're sharing some sheet music with you. (We hope to have a recorded podcast later in the week.)

The ideas in this song were inspired by an A.W. Tozer book, The Attributes of God. Tozer writes:

We educated Americans can create gods just the same as the heathen can. You can make a god out of silver or wood or stone - or you can make it out of your own imagination. And the god that's being worshiped in many places is simply a god of imagination.

....God is not only good; God is severe. Romans 11:22 tells us about the severity of God: "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God." ... He has said, "I'll allow you, within a little framework, to be your own boss and to choose to go to heaven or to hell."

Those words can sound so harsh, misguided and irrelevant! But perhaps there's more to the idea than the first impression.

We've all encountered stories of human atrocity that offend our limited sense of justice so deeply that we wish death (or even eternal torment) on the offender. Crimes against children come to mind - and atrocities of war, and deliberate, willful abuses of great amounts of power.

And yet to depose one fallible person in favour of another, however much the new authority is set on righting wrongs, only seems to create another cycle of failure and injustice.

One could argue that humanity is not inherently capable of perfect goodness. But if every act of good is also an act of evil, either by omission or commission, where does that leave us?

We see the same pattern playing out on a smaller scale in our own daily lives. What does this mean for each of us as individuals?

Tozer also writes:

Justice is not something that God has. Justice is something that God is.... Nothing ever requires God to do anything. If you have a god who is required to do anything, then you have a weak god who has to bow his neck to some yoke and yield himself to pressure from the outside. Then justice is bigger than God. But that is to think wrongly.

External justice stands there as a law and says, "That man shall die," but mercy says, "Please, please spare him!"

But to think thus of God is to think wrongly of God. Everything that God is and does harmonizes with everything else that God is and does....

....God's justice and God's mercy do not quarrel with each other.

There is a deeper morality than human morality, one which recognizes a personal inability to be fully moral - not just that this is a fact of being human, but that it goes against God's character to be that way, and that God is in no way required to sympathize with us in the face of our failure.

Yet He does. He chooses to. And He chooses His own way of doing it, not subject to our demands, desires or flawed attempts to re-imagine His nature.

Hebrews 4:14-16
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.

Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.

God is free to create His own solution to the problems of the universe and to work it out in His own way. Nothing external to Him requires Him to act in a certain way - certainly not the preconceptions of we who are so out of tune with His character. God is God, infinite.

This, however, is only the first part of the story. For the rest, we'll leave you with the song.

Click here to get the PDF sheet music for My God Has But One Heart.

Labels: Music, Podcasts

posted by Zookeeper Cat @ 11:52 PM 0 Comments  

Thank You and Goodnight

Thanks so much to everyone who came by to listen to EasterCast! Our site counter tells us we had 37 unique visitors. The kids are sleeping now, but I know they'll feel so rewarded to know that their efforts caught your ear.

We'll keep all our podcasts filed in the links at the side. If you thought you missed out, don't worry, you didn't - we keep things on file. (Note: The problem with the "Peace Like A River" link has now been fixed. Our thanks to the friend who reported it.)

The kids are interested in aiming for a song each week, so feel free to come back and see whether we manage to meet that goal!

posted by Zookeeper Cat @ 10:31 PM 0 Comments  

EasterCast

Happy Easter! We're giving the new, improved Faith Roots site a semi-official kick-off with a family Easter concert. We have nine songs for you today. The Program Notes are available here.

And now, on with the festivities! This weekend, we have original piano music, a jazz hymn or two, more of the kids and their parts singing, and a couple of brave solos from their hapless parents. We have everything from bluegrass to classical to a cappella. We are very enthusiastic, if not very polished!

We apologize if we don't sound like professionals; it's because we're not. We just do this stuff for fun, and to be honest, we're a little out of practice lately. Hope you enjoy it anyway!

To listen to the whole podcast as one file, click here.

I haven't been able to verify the full file, due to problems with my slow connection. If it doesn't work, we also have each of the songs individually linked, below.

Here's the song that inspired the PodcastFest here at Lazy Creek:

Click to listen to the kids sing Hiding From the Storm

And the rest of our family concert:

Click to hear Jesus, Lover of My Soul (instrumental)

Click to hear Peace Like a River (bluegrass)

Click to hear Piano Meditation (instrumental)

Click to hear What a Friend We Have in Jesus (jazz)

Click to hear In the Shadow of Your Wings (gospel hymn)

Click to hear Schroeder's Amazing Grace (instrumental)

Click to hear Rock of Ages (bluegrass instrumental)

Click to hear Jesus Loves Me (gospel hymn)

Labels: Music, Podcasts

posted by Zookeeper Cat @ 12:30 PM 2 Comments  

Jonathan's Lecture Hall

"Jonathan's Lecture Hall" is just a fancy title for Cat's online devotional. All that happens there is, I retype a portion of the sermon I'm reading - helps with absorbing the content - and then post a mini-Q & A based on what it makes me think about. You can leave comments if you want to join in, or you can just read along. Because Edwards is old enough to be public domain, his sermons are easily found online. I've post links to them in the Lecture Hall sidebar.

Click here to visit the Lecture Hall.

Labels: BibleStudy

posted by Zookeeper Cat @ 5:20 PM 0 Comments