What
an incredible time of the year! Flowers are blooming, farmers are
farming and graduates are graduating! Congrats High School and
Collegiate Class of 2014!!! Your future awaits! It will be filled with
adventure and excitement as you discover new challenges and explore new
skills! Embrace and enjoy all of the "new" that is happening around
you! While there are many new things that await as you sally forth,
you may be surprised to find that many things in this "grown up" life
are very familiar...
Deep Purple - "Smoke On The Water"
Deep Purple - "Smoke On The Water"
If
you hang out with music lovers for very long you begin to notice that
at the very beginning of a song, they smile in recognition or begin a
head bob. This is due to the condition known as musicas recognitis.
Sometimes people with this condition can be very helpful (I can name
that tune in 2 notes!). Sometimes they can drive you crazy (one note of
the song begins and they exclaim..."GREAT SONG!"). To a certain extent
everyone who listens to music of any genre carries the genetic mutation
which can cause musicas recognitis to go to full flare up. Songs like
our song of the day, tend to make it go into full blown bodily takeover
mode.
Many songs featured in Tuesday's Musical Notes have easy to recognize beginnings... Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Crazy Train", Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Let My Love Open The Door", Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart), and Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Life's Been Good"
are all songs that the minute they begin playing, instant familiarity
floods every sinew of your musical being. But no song more encapsulates
this feeling than Deep Purple's 1972 #4 classic, "Smoke On The Water".
It came in at #4 on Total Guitar Magazine's Greatest Guitar Riffs Ever ("Greatest Guitar Riffs Ever" - Guitar Magazine) and continues to make Machine Head, Deep Purple's best selling album.
It
is a song about a fire that wiped out the Montreaux Casino on the night
of a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert. The title
actually came from the fact that the band could see the fire from their
hotel across Lake Geneva from the casino. The smoke was literally on
the water! "Smoke On The Water" continues to be the song for which Deep
Purple is known. It is one of the only songs that Black Sabbath every
covered, as lead singer Ian Gillian toured with the band during 1983 and
is its opening guitar lick is usually one of the first guitar riffs
learned by beginning guitarists. Hence the ability of "Smoke On The
Water" to be recognized by people around the world.
Just
like the opening guitar riff of "Smoke On The Water", believers should
be quickly recognized when they are encountered. The Notes absolutely
does not wish to insult anyone, but we wonder if this is reality. Would
the believers you know be easily recognized in a room full of
non-believers? Would YOU be easily and quickly recognized as a believer
in a crowd of non-believers? We confess and are saddened by the fact
that far too many times we are not immediately and regularly recognized
as being a follower of Jesus. For too many years, we have surrounded
ourselves by people who believe like we do because it is the most
comfortable position in which to be. Upon reflection we wonder if this is the
model that Jesus put before us.
In
Matthew 5, Jesus delivers his beatitudes message to a hillside of
people who were looking for a deliverer. He was considered
revolutionary through this message of encouraging people to be meek,
poor, and merciful. In the beatitudes, Jesus verbalizes the attributes of a
person who would be effortlessly recognized as a disciple of His. He
later likens His followers to a light on a lightstand, shining brightly
so that "they may see your good works and glorify your Father in
heaven." In this discourse, Jesus details outward attributes that would
show people around us that we are Christians. If we may, The Notes
would like to consolidate these attributes into 3...love, joy, and hope.
First
of all, to be recognized by the world around us as followers of Jesus,
we must love like Jesus loved. That seems to be easily done, but the
practicality of it is somewhat more difficult. In His earthly ministry,
Jesus physically touched those who were considered "unclean" (Matthew 8:1-3 ), He associated with those who were considered "sinners" (Matthew 9:9-13, Luke 7:36-50) and He was compassionate to the powerful (Luke 18:18-23, John 3:1-21).
Jesus displayed love to all those He encountered who approached Him
with a need. His love and compassion is the very first sign that makes
one easily recognizable as a believer.
Secondly, believers have an inner joy that exudes from them regardless of the situation in which they may find themselves. It has been well said that this is the biggest thing that is missing from the church and believers today is the sense of joy in the salvation and restoration we have through Jesus. The 1st chapter of the book of James details why our joy is complete even in trials (James 1) Jesus displayed joy at times as well (Luke 10:17-24).
Finally, of all people in the world, believers have reason to hope. Hope as we anticipate the revelation for God's plan in this world (...on earth as it is in heaven...). Hope as we watch the daily transformation we make into being more like Jesus (Romans 12:1-23). And hope of the eternity we will have with Him and the Father as He promised us (Matthew 24).
As
we enter the environments that are our daily lives, let us be
challenged to easily be recognized as believers by loving the way that
Jesus loved, outwardly showing the contagious joy of our salvation, and
exhibiting an irrepressible hope of the future. That way those around
us will instantly and easily know we are Christians within the first few measures of our
song....
'Til Tuesday,
Serving HIM by serving you,
Randy
Randy
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