The radio really annoys me.
This might be a bit harsh but it is how I have come to feel with just about every other song shooting through the airwaves expelling a newly packaged mess of the exact same message.
Have it your way!
It's fun, go do it!
Follow the crowd!
Love is easy, go get some!
Yes, the beats are catchy, the musicians are usually quite attractive, the music videos can be entertaining, but dig a bit deeper at the very meat of the message that this music is radiating into the world and you will find nothing of substance. So many lyrics emptied of their meaning and overflowing with cheap worldly wisdom on love, money, and how to live your life. And like this, the words and efforts fall flat without the brilliance of love.
For King & Country sings,
"If I sing but don't have love I waste my breath with every song, I bring an empty voice, a hollow noise. If I speak with a silver tongue, convince a crowd but don't have love, I leave a bitter taste with every word I say."
Along with this, 1 Corinthians 13:1 says, "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol."
Mere boring elevator music, booming club music, and static noise fills up our minds to the very brim and our purpose shifts, becoming lost amidst the noise. Recently, I have come to the frightening conclusion that our lives have come to parallel this picture. Losing our own heart to the world, we forfeit it and gather in our hands nothing of worth. We quickly swallow and internalize the advice of a society spinning on an axis rooted in sand in place of the solid cornerstone of Christ. It is all about your comfort, the culturally accepted, having a faith mirroring a society obsessed with following the norm. We silence any questions that arise in fear that we might be called to change something beyond the outer appearance of our lives. We come to spew out exactly what other people want to hear.We heap up empty words of praise instead of saying what is on our heart in fear of being challenged.
We allow the words of our mouth to be just that, words.
Like the catchy tune found at a night club or on 96.3, we allow for our words to come from a place of comfort and what has always been. Shutting up the potential for life-giving, fruit-bearing, and Spirit-led conversation in our souls, we lock His power up within us that is waiting to be unleashed. We skim past the depth of life in order to fit back into old relationships and ways of living in order to sail through our lives smoothly, instead of stopping to challenge those around us to look up at Jesus and look inward at the frightening state of their own hearts.
Flipping this, we so often choose to accept the path we have always taken in order to sidestep the tension that comes with truly examining the state of our own hearts. In Romans 1:21 apostle Paul calls these people out saying,"...but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." If I am honest with myself, this passage and Romans 7 comes to reflect more of my days than I would like, for I know that I do not always live by the Spirit. My heart shifts from standing in the light of the sun to darkness as I find selfish desires forcefully driving my steps instead of the King. My thinking twists me to believe I am in control of my days, my plans, my relationships, and this is where He sets me back in my rightful place far below Him on my knees.
Wonderfully comfortable and dressed up exquisitely on the outside, our hearts are in danger of remaining unchanged. We can feed our souls with sermons, books, and people that make us feel great about who we are, what we have done right, what fantastic Christians we are, being "good people" and allow us to fail to recognize that by our own power, we stand completely undeserving, unworthy, and empty. Without Jesus who died on our behalf, we stand condemned before the Father.
We so easily fool ourselves into believing we can do it on our own.
We can find the right person who will 'complete us' one day, we can raise a family by our own strength, we can spark a change in our friends by planting the right words in conversation. Heck, we can change the whole world!...Yet how can we forget such a vital concept that we are the created not the Creator?
We are His workmanship not the Worker bringing us and this world to completion (Ephesians 2:10)
We are His children not the Father (Galatians 3:26)
We are a reflection of His furious Love not Love Himself (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Without the backing of the most High King, we are paupers.
In "Proof of Your Love" For King and Country sings, "If I give to a needy soul but don't have love then who is poor? It seems all the poverty is found in me."
We are spiritually, emotionally, and materially a mass of moving dry bones that speak on our own accord. The expanse of our lives is a landscape of muted and silenced colors, stagnant and barely shifting. Doesn't matter the pile of money heaped up in your bank account, the college or high school you attend, or how bright your future appears, you are a needy soul without Jesus.
Passing a homeless person on the corner, they may not have much money, clothing, or food but if they have Jesus, they are the ones with the treasure of this life. You might be the one laughing now but standing before God, He will be the one looked favorably upon.
Matthew 23:27 speaks to the reality of this with the scribes and Pharisees labeling them "hypocrites" and calling them out as Jesus says,
which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness."
We are whitewashed tombs.
We are scrubbing at external nicks and scratches on each other's tombstones, failing to realize we may be living in this world but we are not truly alive without Him. We may be able to trick the world into believing that we are just fine by slapping on a smile and a nice outfit, but the true state of our heart is something to be unveiled and handed over to the only One who has the power to heal its broken state in full. We were bound to the old way of the law through the written code that held us captive, but now we can walk in the Spirit (Romans 7:6).
Without Jesus, we are dead in a grave. Plain and simple.
We can be blind to the One calling out our names to be awakened.
We shovel truckloads of dirt onto our chest, unknowingly blinding our eyes, and suffocating, as we miss out on living our every moment for the glory of Jesus Christ whose glory outshines all things this world has to offer.
Dressing up the exterior, we can trick ourselves into believing that our heart will beat forevermore. In reality, we are in desperate need of His furious love to sweep through our souls, bringing the breath of new life to our slowing heart beats. By the Spirit that bears witness, we are called His children but by this comes the responsibility and duty to love others with the same sacrificial love He gave on the cross not simply resorting to the old ways.
You can commit your life to doing missions in Africa, sell your entire wardrobe to the local Salvation Army, volunteer every single day for the rest of your life at the soup kitchen in the inner city, but if Love Himself is not at the center, what do you have?
You have....nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:2 says, "If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing."
John 15:5 says, "...for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned."
Wait...you mean all these 'good deeds', powers, knowledge, and faith don't mean anything? Nope.
Isaiah 64:6 “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
Romans 3:23 "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."
Jesus, Love Himself, is the justification we have gained.
Out of His heart alone is where these things flow and are given true meaning and depth. He is the One whose blood has covered our sin and raises us to new life. Without His Spirit within us, we are dry bones. We are empty shells stumbling and tripping over our own fumbled steps as we chase the passions of a heart chained to this life.
You will find yourself gasping for the true oxygen that fills your lungs once you have a taste of who He is. Without Him, you have dust slipping through your hands.
Against a bloodshot sunset of gorgeous pinks and oranges, stands the contrasting white tombs of those He has created. Stagnant and unchanging, these tombs sit atop a hill with their owners furiously scrubbing away at their tombstone, scratching away at dirt spots, modifying and changing the outside all the while in slumber to the deadened heart beating within. Even in knowledge of Christ, their sight is momentarily blinded to the life awaiting them at the bottom of the hill, their eyes entranced by the world and its momentary glitter.
Time is not on our side.
One day with a final breath given to the wind, we will pass on and what will remain of you?
A life song of empty noise or one of praise to the King of Kings whom you will spend eternity with? A written story of your own making spent scrubbing the exterior of a box surrounding the desperate heart encased within?
Singing out in the final curtain call, For King & Country sings, "When it's all said and done
When we sing our final song, Only love remains."
Hear that?
Love remains. He is the eternal One, we are the temporary. One day we will no longer wake up, our heart shall not beat, and the clock will be silenced for our time has passed.
And this tune we choose to live our lives to will be telling of the state of our hearts and whether we chose to trust His holy name or lean on our own weak standing.
May we be people who choose to take up our own cross for His sake.
To follow Truth and to stop scrubbing away at the mere surface of this life to find ourselves instead transfixed by the God who calls us to look inward. To have the courage to look within our own fragmented soul and those around us to find hearts in incredible longing for Jesus and to take action. The wholeness He offers through the cross is unveiled and tangible as we surrender our lives to making His glory known to this world.
Shaking us from slumber, He is the only One to awaken us as this invisible cord is released that once bound us to our own tombstones shatter and wither in light of His glory. Running down the hill, we are freed to embrace Life and Love Himself standing with open arms and mighty hands to heal our afflictions and points us to living life in such a way where we live in light of eternity and find the abundance of a life filled with more and more of Jesus.
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