Journeys Along The Way

Sonseed version:

David Crowder* Band version:

I like David Crowder* Band’s version a little bit better.

The few times that I have listened to the radio over the past couple of weeks I have heard the same song at least once a day.  I think it speaks volumes of how much the Gospel of Christ has influenced the world in a positive way (currently I am overlooking the negative angle).  The song that I am speaking of is called Peace, Love, and Happiness and it’s by G. Love and Special Sauce.

Here are the lyrics:

why let this world weigh on your shoulders
pick it up push it off
before you let yourself colder
just look into the eyes
the good eyes of a child and see
that love rise like a river
and flow for a thousand miles
to give me some
peace love happiness
peace love happiness
peace love happiness
peace love happiness

breathe in deep
feel your heart beat
just to know that life’s worth living
feel your feet on the earth
you gotta (better) love it
while it’s still here spinning
I got no time to worry about troubles or misgiving
just let it go
let yourself flow
cause if you’re hating
then you sure ain’t living
gimme some

peace love and happiness

lotta people talking
need somebody to listen
lots of people struggling
if you got
then you better start giving a little more

peace love and happiness

how can we eat this daily bread
when so many people starving?
how come the president builds more bombs
instead of just disarming?
with all that money
spends on guns instead of food and education
we need to buy a little peace and love
instead and start the healing of the nations

gimme some
peace love and happiness

I wanted to look back at my posts from Xanga that I wanted to explore here on WordPress, and the more and more I thought about, the more and more convinced that I wanted to explore grace a little more in depth.  Below is my post from Xanga, that I want to repost on here for consideration of my audience.

[Last September while I was at] The Crossing for church (which really is not that much of a surprise)… Keith Simon spoke and he started off by saying that [particular] “sermon” was going to be a break from the normal.  He talked about the life of John Newton, one of the men behind the hymn Amazing Grace.  And something that Keith said stood out for me.  Prior to dying (I currently cannot remember when it was said) John Newton made an interesting quote: “I’m a great sinner, but God is a Great Savior.”  This stood out for me because we are all sinners (not that much of a surprise there, I do realize that).  But in context Keith was saying that one of the many things we could learn from the life of Newton was that we need to see God’s grace in our day to day life.  How we, as sinners need to see that the God of the universe is always in control of the outcome of whatever we do… and we need to recognize that.

My next post will take a little different look at the above post.

Earlier this evening Amanda spoke at the BSU about an interesting topic: community. Even though it seems at times we are involved with a community of people… are we really “doing it by The Book?” Over the past two hours or so since the conclusion of her talk I have been thinking a lot about it. What does a Biblical community really look like? Something tells me, we strive for the perfection we think is correct, but is contemporary Christian community a true reflection of our beliefs?

As she spoke, Amanda read from Romans 14 and 15 from The Message version of the Bible. I must say, Eugene Peterson has an interesting way with words.

Here is the first verse from Romans 14 from The Message: “Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.” Amanda made the point that we often hang out with people that think close to, if not exactly like ourselves. However, if you look at Romans 14:1, that is not what Paul said to do at all. We are to accept those that have different opinions than we do. I know for myself at least that this is easier said than done. Can we truly show the world that everybody is accepted into The Body of Christ if we are not accepting of those within The Body already that have different opinions?

What is a Biblical community? Where does it say in the Bible that The Church is to be divided into different groups? We all worship the same God, but do we live community “by The Book?”

These are all thoughts and questions that I want to explore at a later time (considering that it is nearly 11:30 PM and I have been up since 7:50 AM). Have faith friends for community, love, grace, politics, and the Cross are soon to arrive a little differently than before.

I was thinking about what I wanted to do with having two blogs.  It seems a little crazy to think that I have two blogs that seem to be very similar.  What am I to do about that?  Well, here was the thought from the start of this past summer: to use this blog for my various post series and use my Xanga for random posts.  Then as the summer trailed on I did not really live up to the expectation.  Well, here I am again ready to start over.  Starting in October I will be starting to define that line yet again.  My first series here on WordPress: What A Christian Looks Like.