This is a cover of Hillsong Young and Free – Real Love, sung by a young man I have been privileged to get to know this year, Myles Vele. He came as an intern to teach at my school and will continue with us in 2017. Hope you enjoy this. Blessings to all.
Pure Grace
How Can it Be?
Just a quick post to share this great song by Lauren Daigle.
You plead my cause
You right my wrongs
You break my chains
You overcome
You gave Your life
To give me mine
You say that I am free
How can it be
How can it be
I’ve been hiding
Afraid I’ve let you down, inside I doubt
That You still love me
But in Your eyes there’s only grace now
You plead my cause
You right my wrongs
You break my chains
You overcome
You gave Your life
To give me mine
You say that I am free
How can it be
How can it be
Though I fall, You can make me new
From this death I will rise with You
Oh the grace reaching out for me
How can it be
How can it be
You plead my cause
You right my wrongs
You break my chains
You overcome
You gave Your life
To give me mine
You say that I am free
You plead my cause
You right my wrongs
You break my chains
You overcome
You gave Your life
To give me mine
You say that I am free
How can it be
How can it be
Songwriters: Jason Ingram / Jeff Johnson / Paul Mabury
How Can It Be lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Essential Music Publishing, Music Services, Inc
Watch “Urban Rescue – His Name (Lyric Video)” on YouTube
I’ve only just discovered this band. See what you think.
Suffering. . . A transforming grace?
“God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as He leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call “our own life” remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make “our own life” less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness?”
(The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis, p.96–97)
Watch a 90-year-old husband and wife play Bach together
They’ve been married for over 65 years: when this couple sit at the piano, something magical happens.
Composer and pianist György Kurtág is one of the most important figures in music from the past 100 years. He has also played with his wife, Márta, another very accomplished pianist, for many years. Recent footage taken from a live concert in Budapest reveals the depth of their musical understanding.
The couple play transcriptions made by the composer of Bach’s choral preludeDas alte Jahr vergangen ist BWV 614, his Duet BWV 804 and a movement from the Baroque composer’s cantataActus tragicus.
György was born in Romania in 1926, moved to Hungary in 1946 and married pianist Márta Kinsker in 1947. The two have duetted ever since.
This is what it sounds like when you live and play Bach together for 70 years:
http://www.classicfm.com/composers/bach/news/duets-video-kurtag/
Grace
What grace it is that we don’t have to win God’s favour by our goodness.
From Tim Keller
Let Joy take temptation’s place
I just love the poetry in this song, which challenges us to see ourselves as a people ‘built by hands of love’ to ‘fight back darkness with delight‘. We are to be filled with God’s presence (we are your ‘cathedrals’). And I find this a great concept too: replacing temptation with Joy! These are things we can choose to focus on in our day, to actively make into habits in our living and attitudes. I trust you will be encouraged by these words.
“Cathedrals” by Tenth Avenue North
We were built by the hands of love
Redeemed in spite of what we’ve done
We are the Spirit’s dwelling place
And now, children of the light
Fight back darkness with delight
Lift your eyes up to His face
Let joy take temptation’s place
Joy takes temptation’s place
Open up our souls to feel Your glory
Lord, we are a desperate people
Your cathedrals
God, fill this space
Let joy take temptation’s place
We will taste and see You as You are
Father, let Your kingdom come
Keep us from our lesser loves
Nothing else can satisfy
Like the joy found in Your eyes
There’s joy found inside Your eyes
Your eyes
Open up our souls to feel Your glory
Lord, we are a desperate people
Your cathedrals
God, fill this space
Let joy take temptation’s place
We will taste and see You as You are
May we see You as You are
And our hungry souls reach out to whatever fills us up
But we’ll keep on falling down unless we fall in love
Our hungry souls reach out to whatever fills us up
But we keep on falling down until we fall in love
Lord, Lord, Lord
Soar – Meredith Andrews
Friday Flashback: Lord Of The Dance
Lord of the Dance by Steven Curtis Chapman
On the bank of the Tennessee River
In a small Kentucky town
I drew my first breath one cold November morning
And before my feet even touched the ground
With the doctors and the nurses gathered ’round
I started to dance, I started to dance
A little boy full of wide-eyed wonder
Footloose and fancy free
But it would happen, as it does for every dancer
That I’d stumble on a truth I couldn’t see
And find a longing deep inside of me, it said
I am the heart, I need the heartbeat
I am the eyes, I need the sight
I realize that I am just a body
I need the life
I move my feet, I go through the motions
But who’ll give purpose to chance
I am the dancer
I need the Lord of the dance
The world beneath us spins in circles
And this life makes us twist and turn and sway
But we were made for more than rhythm with no reason
By the one who moves with passion and with grace
As He dances over all that He has made
I am the heart . . .
And while the music of His love and mercy plays
I will fall down on my knees and I will pray
I am the heart, You are the heartbeat
I am the eyes, You are the sight
And I see clearly, I am just a body
You are the life
I move my feet, I go through the motions
But You give purpose to chance
I am the dancer
You are the Lord of the dance
I am the dancer
You are the Lord of the dance
The end goal: Hope
God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5:8)
Notice that “demonstrates” is present tense and “died” is past tense.
The present tense implies that this demonstrating is an ongoing act that keeps happening in today’s present and tomorrow’s present.
The past tense “died” implies that the death of Christ happened once for all and will not be repeated. “Christ died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).
Why did Paul use the present tense (“God demonstrates”)? I would have expected Paul to say, “God demonstrated (past tense) his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Was not the death of Christ the demonstration of God’s love? And did not that demonstration happen in the past?
I think the clue is given a few verses earlier. Paul has just said that “tribulations work patient endurance, and patient endurance works proven character, and proven character works hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (vv. 3–5).
In other words, the goal of everything God takes us through is hope. He wants us to feel unwaveringly hopeful through all tribulations.
But how can we?
Paul answers in the next line: “Because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (v. 5). God’s love “has been poured out in our hearts.” The tense of this verb means that God’s love was poured out in our hearts in the past (at our conversion) and is still present and active.
God did demonstrate his love for us in giving his own Son to die once for all in the past for our sins (v. 8). But he also knows that this past love must be experienced as a present reality (today and tomorrow) if we are to have patience and character and hope.
Therefore he not only demonstrated it on Calvary, he goes on demonstrating it now by the Spirit. He does this by opening the eyes of our hearts to “taste and see” the glory of the cross and the guarantee that it gives that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:39).
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-love-of-god-past-and-present
sevennotesofgrace 