Welcome to Tuesday!!! It's time for the Notes!!! Have you noticed a different feel to the air? Is that a popcorn smell? "We Will Protect This House!!!" Perhaps a rise in the decibel level? Certainly disappointment for some parts of the country.....it seems that this time of the year can be described in one word.....Madness!!!
It's the time of the year where brackets are stylish and ones favorite team's colors are more in vogue. People of differing backgrounds come together for a few weeks to support the one thing they have in common....their basketball team. People invest time and effort into competing with friends and family to see who can determine the best in the NCAA. Unfortunately, The Notes favorite team will not be in any post-season basketball tournament.....sigh...is it baseball season?... Go Hogs!!! We will continue to watch with interest as the games play themselves out and the best in the land at basketball is eventually determined for this year's season. So cheer for your favorites and let the bracketing begin!!
They share the record (214 weeks) with UB40 for spending the most weeks on the United Kingdom singles chart during the decade of the 1980s, yet with the exception of 1 song and a greatest hits album, they are not well known in the United States. They started as a ska band, transitioned to pop, and experimented with adding reggae and new wave with each successive hit. They continue to tour around the world with the 7 man lineup of the most popular formation of the band. Their newest full album release Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da came out in October 2012 and put them back in the charts in England, making the band Madness one of the most successful English acts in Rock history.
"Our House" Madness
Madness reached #7 in the US with their 1982 single "Our House". It was an ode to a simpler time when "Father wore his Sunday best" and the house was considered one's castle. This theme of a man's house being a place of shelter and security has been around for many years, even dating back to Biblical times. The earliest reference is found in Genesis, where Jacob dreamed of the original "stairway to heaven" and set up a covenant altar to commemorate his Godly encounter. Bethel became the first mention of "God's house" in the Bible.
Genesis 28:20 - " Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
Notice the prayer for the necessities of life. Jacob is asking for Providential care over his house as he is committing to worship God with his life and resources. This physical representation of a house for God continued in the form of the tabernacle that Moses and the Israelites constructed and carried throughout their wanderings in the desert. This place of meeting with God would be the precursor for a much larger and ornate house.
The tabernacle's basic design would be utilized later in Jerusalem. God continued to show His intense desire to have a personal relationship with His people as His Glory filled the temple that King Solomon built in 2 Chronicles 7
After the temple was destroyed, the synagogue, while not known as God's house, became the principle facility for Jewish prayer and communication to God. The following picture is at the remains of the synagogue in Capernaum. Notice the darker stones of the foundation. These are the stones of the synagogue from Jesus time. Capernaum is where Peter's mother lived and many of the disciples used as a "home base".
Finally, the apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church about how God manifests His Presence during the church age as the Holy Spirit dwells in believers.16-17 You realize, don’t you, that you are the temple of God, and God himself is present in you? No one will get by with vandalizing God’s temple, you can be sure of that. God’s temple is sacred—and you, remember, are the temple. 1 Corinthians 3: 16-17 The Message
Did you pick up on that? As believers, our bodies serve as a Bethel, a tabernacle, a temple, a synagogue for the same God whose Glory filled the tabernacle in the wilderness and the most splendid temple ever known to man dwells in the believer through the person of the Holy Spirit. (The Notes concedes the possible tangents that can be derived from this passage of scripture. At this point, everything that you can do to your physcial body from gluttony to tattoos could be discussed. However, The Notes firmly believes that is an issue between the believer and God and not something that can easily be debated.) We are struck by the incredible responsibility as well as the awesome power that we carry in "Our House". Paul also writes to his apprentice Timothy about this power in 2 Timothy1:6-11.
As we read about how the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob desired a relationship with these great patriarchs of the Old Testament, this passage for today's believer should be the confirmation of "I can do all this through him who gives me strength." Phillipians 4:13 NIV and the soundtrack that continues to play at "Our house, in the middle of our street....."
'Til Tuesday,
Loving HIM by loving you,
Randy
No comments:
Post a Comment