I've been stuck in that "love" passage of 1 Corinthians 13 for a few days, and realizing what a shame is that this scripture is so often relegated to being read only at wedding ceremonies.

I have a beautiful friend who very often says, "We wage war with love, because love never fails." This is a great saying, unless we never really read this incredibly clear definition of what love is. Our culture tells us many different things about how to love and what love may be defined as being. But I rather think it is all laid out right here.

LOVE IS...

... patient
... kind

LOVE ALWAYS...

... rejoices in the truth
... protects
... trusts
... hopes
... perseveres

LOVE IS NOT...

... envious
... boastful
... proud
... rude
... self-seeking
... easily angered

LOVE DOES NOT...

... keep a record of wrongs
... delight in evil
... ever fail


For myself, this scripture has been on my brain in the last few days, and it causes me to wonder whether I love the people in my life this way. I fully realize that I have certain people in my life that are difficult to love for whatever reason. I think we probably all do, and it's important to make sure that we are doing our best to still fulfill this kind of love towards those people. But I am thinking more tonight of those friends to whom I regularly say, "I love you." To me, those words are not flippant, nor are they simply a salutation or a way to say goodbye. I earnestly desire those words to be true whenever I speak them. But as my friend also very often says, "Talk's cheap." If I am going to use the words, "I love you,", then it's time once again to make sure I understand what I mean when I say it, and ensure that I am living up God's standards for what love truly is.

There are many things that make up who I am - talents, skills, and personality. But I pray that when I am no longer near the friends that I have now, they will remember me not as someone who could sing or play some instruments, but as someone who loved the Lord and who loved people. Someone who loved scripturally and who loved with abandon.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...." (1 Corinthians 13:1-8a)

I've been thinking about corporate worship song lyrics lately with a few new tunes we've been doing at one of our services. They are popular songs (if that's not a strange way to describe worship tunes) - well-received, musically catchy and seem to resonate with people's spirits as they sing to the Lord. But I sometimes have trouble singing one or two of them. Here's why:

I'm not entirely sure that what I'm singing is truth.

Oh, I'm not saying they are Biblical heresy - no way. If that were the case, I know they would be chucked immediately by the worship leader using them, and also by the leadership team. No, I simply mean that I'm not sure I can sing them with accuracy in my own life. Check it out:

Everyday, it's You I'll live for
Everyday, I'll follow after You
Everyday, I'll walk with You, my Lord

My prayer and my desire is to live for Jesus every day - with passion, with authenticity and with every ounce of my strength until the day I breathe my last breath. But do I do that? Can I really sing with assurance that I will never stray, even so slightly, and follow my own desires or will in a situation? Or that I will never live for my own best interest, be it ever so small a circumstance or strong a temptation? To really be dramatic, I almost feel like I am singing that I will never sin, and that is rather ridiculous (have you met me?).

I understand the intent of the songwriter, I think - and when I do sing this song that is hopefully where my heart is - declaring a desire to live my life for God and follow Him into whatever He places in front of me. That much is truth, and I can sing that. Whether I live up to it remains to be seen only through the test of time, and I pray for God's grace and strength in my life to do it.

But it is a sharp reminder to me as a songwriter and worship leader that I must be diligent in ensuring that what I put before my congregation to sing is Biblically correct, aligning our songs to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit with the truth of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It's not a new thought. It's not a profound thought. But it is an incredibly important thought.


Vicky Beeching has some great thoughts and good tips on the same thing for songwriters in this article from Passion For Your Name.

Many, many apologies for my lack of blogging in the last couple of weeks! And many thanks for not yelling at me in the comment section to UPDATE!! For a little while, face to face ministry has been superceding cyber ministry (or online time altogether) and for the last few days I've been out of town.

In fact, I thought I'd never get BACK to town this trip! I've been down in Kentucky at the Salvation Army's North American Composers' Forum, and just got home a couple of hours ago - approximately 27 hours after I left. It's like I went from Lexington to Vancouver via Tokyo. (Actually, that might have been faster!) Actually, all that happened was that I missed my Vancouver connection out of Houston - our flight TO Houston was delayed due to the Houston airport having been closed with very bad weather when we were trying to leave the Lexington airport. Of course, by the time my 2 and a 1/2 hour flight to Houston arrived, the weather was great and my Vancouver flight left perfectly on time....about 45 minutes before my Houston flight landed.

So, I had the opportunity to discover that the Airport Marriott in Houston, Texas is a pretty nice hotel, though I did think for a time that I was going to have to sleep in the elevator - that's another story altogether. Praise the Lord for nice fellow travelers who take pity on people who look like morons. (Oh yes, that was most definitely me....) And people wonder why I haven't previously been such a fan of travel..... Every time I travel there seems so far to have been a new and exciting (please read stressful between those lines) experience. Though it means that the next time won't be new and probably won't be stressful. Good lessons. Really good lessons. Some day I'll probably also add the phrase "Good times."

Maybe not until tomorrow.

I'm not sure what this blog is about at all - I still feel like any moment a flight attendant is going to ask me to fasten my seat belt and ensure that my tray table and seat back are in the upright and locked position, and that then my bed is going to either take off or land. My dreams tonight should be very interesting. And perhaps in the next couple of days when I'm more lucid I'll write something a little more normal for this blog....

Until then, may our Lord bless you with peace and joy, and a sustaining strength to fulfill His will.

Just a short blog this morning:

I was coming down the elevator to the parking garage in order to head in to the office this morning, and on the way down the elevator stopped to let in another lady from my building that that I know slightly. We said good morning and I asked how she was doing. She said she was heading to Rehab for a 7-hour day. While I pondered the intensity of a 7-hour drug Rehab day and the amazing openness of a woman I barely know, she proceded to talk about how she had injured her knee at work.

It turns out that THAT was what she was heading to Rehab for, in accordance with her WCB requirements.

I had to shake my head. It's weird what your mind will do....

It seems that this last month or so has been a month of war in the spiritual realm. My own experience is that there has been a great deal of pressing in on all sides from the enemy in the last month. And it seems that everyone I talk to has experienced the same thing. Some have been at it for somewhat more than a month, some are not quite finished yet. But a parallel experience seems to be there nonetheless. I don't have any specific scriptures off the top of my head that back up the concept of a corporate pressing by the enemy, but I see it happening. (If you have any scriptures to share, please feel free to leave them as a comment....)

Rather than search for scripture to back up what I see happening anyway, I would like to share a few scriptures in the hopes of encouraging the body of Christ to be able to get up, shake off the dust and begin again to recognize and fight the enemy of our souls.

If you are one that seems to have heard the lies of the enemy an exorbitant amount this past few weeks, be encouraged:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

If you are one who seems to have been struggling against your flesh more than you normally experience, be encouraged:

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. (Ephesians 1:7-8)

If you are one that seems to have felt despair and depression engulfing you lately, be encouraged:

From the Lord comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. (Psalm 3:8)

May the Lord be with you for strength, encouragement, discernment and refreshment.


Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (Ephesians 6:10-18)

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:1-2)

Christ's offering was His obedience, His life, His worship. A fragrant offering....

I had a great picture a few years ago, as the congregation I was a part of was worshipping through music, corporately lost in the moment of being in God's presence. I was up in the balcony, and I think we must have been singing of the "fragrant offering," because all of a sudden I saw us all in a picture, still worshipping through the exact same music we were in the middle of. And as we sang, we thought we were offering to God the most beautiful aroma as an offering. And as I watched our aroma float up to heaven, I recognized that our purest offering and what we thought was the most beautiful fragrance smelled like the vilest pile of rotting garbage - a real stench before the Lord.

And God took a deep breath and inhaled it all in anyway.

What love. What magnificent love.

Later, God showed me that though our best offering we are able to give is still often only an unrefined and smelly odor, it is filtered through the cross of Jesus, and really does become a fragrant offering before the Most High God. Just like we are unable to stand before God without the covering of Jesus' blood, so our worship is rotten and foul without the filter of that same blood.

Hallelujah. Praise to the Almighty God for His plan through His Son to allow us before Him in worship. May we always recognize our place before the King and position ourselves accordingly - at His feet, before His throne, prostrate and lost in adoration and worship.