Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Tuesday's Musical Notes - "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (The Rolling Stones)



Hey there friend, it's Tuesday and time for Tuesday's Musical Notes!!! Today we find our mild-mannered blog attempting to answer the burning questions on everyone's minds...  "Are eyebrows considered facial hair?", "When we get to go back to movie theaters, which armrest is mine?", "Do stairs go up or down?", "If a bunch of cats jump on top of each other, is it still called a dogpile?", "How far east can you go before you are heading west?", and finally "Why are Mick Jagger's lips so big?"

Pondering these things is seemingly useless when there are musical stories to tell and comments to make about Keith Richards' hair waiting.  Besides when it comes to questions like these, sometimes it seems just thinking about them can give you a headache and an exercise in futility as no matter how much you may desire the outcome...You can't always get what you want...



and



Believe it or not, the #101 ranked song on Rolling Stone's (the magazine, not the Band) 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list (Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time). peaked at #42 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1973. Wait...what? That's right, this classic by The Rolling Stones (the Band, not the magazine, (this could get confusing...) Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Sympathy for the Devil" (The Rolling Stones)) never made the top 40 in its initial release as a b-side to "Honky Tonk Women" in 1969.  It only hit the Hot 100 after London Records decided to rerelease the single 4 years later in 1973.

"You Can't Always Get What You Want" has proven so popular that The Rolling Stones have used it in almost every concert tour since its release.  It also finds its way onto 8 different greatest hits compilation albums, 5 live albums, and 10 concert films.  2 different television shows have episodes named after the song (WB - Grounded for Life and One Tree Hill) and it was used by Donald Trump's campaigns in 2016 and 2020 until it was pulled due to The Rolling Stones request to cease its use through the performing rights organization BMI.

As we mentioned earlier, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" was released as the flip-side to the #1 smash "Honky Tonk Women" which finished at #4 overall for 1969 and was the last Rolling Stone's single of the decade.  With its drug references and dissatisfaction bend, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" would resonate with the war-protesting music buying public as they navigated toward the new decade and realized that sometimes while standing against things in which you disagree with introspection and pondering you realize that many times you have it better than what you thought. 


This displeasure was also the situation our friends the Israelites found themselves in as they continued their journey to the Promised Land.  They began to voice their annoyance with their current situation and God singed the outskirts of the camp. (maybe a bit more than singed...folks got toasted!) As they traveled under God's leadership for direction, protection, and discipline they soon found themselves wishing for the good ol days of fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic (could have stopped at melons for my part) that they had in Egypt.  The one thing they didn't mention in the trip down memory lane...They were SLAVES!  

God was providing a Holy meal to them each day in the form of manna, a coriander seed-like substance that could be used as a bread grain for meal preparations.  But this wasn't good enough.  The Bible says that a few footloose men, "rabble" is what the Bible calls them, stirred the pot of discontent and got the people in an uproar about their food situation.  

And I went down to the demonstration
To get my fair share of abuse
Singing, "We're gonna vent our frustration
If we don't we're gonna blow a fifty-amp fuse"
Their criticism became so bad that it began to weigh on Moses.  He became so distraught that he asked God, 

"Why have You been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have put the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Or did I give birth to them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms, as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat so that we may eat!’ I am not able to carry all this people by myself, because it is too burdensome for me. So if You are going to deal with me this way, please kill me now, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my misery.”

My confession to you this week friend is that I have felt the same way Moses did at times in my life.  Why you may ask?  Quite simply, I didn't get my way...  There is a huge difference in the number of folks that Moses was dealing with (approximately 2.4 million) compared to the number of folks that I encounter (How Many People Does the Average Person Physically Meet in a Lifetime? - reference.com - August 12, 2020).  Sure there are also differences in Moses' responsibilities and mine, but the same principles apply...you have no reason to fuss...you get what you need.

Admittedly, the lines between wants and needs can quickly become blurred.  And everyone has different wants and needs.  Take a moment of introspection and seek what God determines is a need versus what you determine is a want...you just might find...Then you might ask God something like this..."God, today as I pursue You, through Your mercy and grace, thwart my sin..."

God instructs Moses to delegate some of his responsibility to 70 leaders.  God pours out Himself on this 70 and tells the entire nation to get ready for another miracle by consecrating (dedicate; ordain; sanctify) themselves before Him.  

I firmly believe this passage in Scripture is where we get the idiom "be careful what you ask for...you just might get it" comes.  The miracle that God gives the Israelites comes in the form of a massive amount of quail (3 feet deep) to go along with their manna waffles and manna bagels ("So, You Wanna Go Back To Egypt?" - the title track from the 1980 album by Keith Green) to satiate their appetite.   So all is great and groovy now right??!! The problem winds up being that men live up to their nature and decide to get greedy.  As they are eating, the greedy, footloose men soon found themselves on the wrong side of God.  God gets so angry with them for not relying on His sufficiency, He causes them to die via plague. Umm...I'll take manna, please...I hear it makes a nice souffle...

It is so easy to be critical of the Israelites in the wilderness.  However, I wonder how we respond to God's sufficiency in the wilderness' we face?  Do we ever cry and whine about not getting/having something that we want?  Do we ever wish for the good ol days that weren't always good? Do we ever proclaim..."I can't get no satisfaction"? (oops, sorry wrong song!) Do we long for that time when we were in slavery to the sin of the world and it seems better than our obedience to God?  Are we so dissatisfied with our current condition that we are blind to the provision of our needs supplied to us by the God who knows what our true needs are?  We all need a reminder that if we'll be patient and open our eyes we just might find...we get what we need.  Isaiah 55 NASB/AMP/KJV  

Oh yeah, Can a hairbrush actually go through Keith Richard's mane?
'Til Tuesday,

Serving HIM by serving You,
randy
<><
Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Travelin' Band" (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

Welcome to Tuesday!!!

Ok, let's see...phone charger, check!  Toiletries, check!  Clothes for any kind of weather, but not too many, check!   New playlist of old music on the phone, check!

Oh, hi there!  What are we doing?  Why we're packing for our journey!  We've been planning for almost a year for this trip and we want to make sure that we have everything we need!  You know what they say, "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail!"  Not exactly sure who "they" are but I'd like to meet them someday...they sure seem wise.  

What's that?  Why have we been planning for a year?  Well, we intend to be gone for quite some time, and we want to make sure we don't have to spend extra money or waste time on getting something we forgot.  Maximize time....minimize expense...another one of "their" sayings...or maybe I just made that one up.  Anyways, we have everything we need and we're just double-checking the list before we pack everything up!  

Back scratcher, check!  Meds, check!  Portable turntable and favorite records, check!  Books, including our Bible, check!!  Well, I think that's it!  We leave out on Tuesday for our journey.  Want to come along?  You can use our checklist of supplies and necessities if you'd like.  It should streamline your preparation.  You're welcome to come along!  But you need to hurry cause you see our 737's coming out of the sky, it's gonna take us down to Memphis for a midnight ride...


Written by John Fogerty  (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Centerfield" (John Fogerty)), and made famous by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Travelin' Band" would soar up the charts to #2 but not have enough momentum to unseat the 6 week run of Simon and Garfunkel (Tuesday's Musical Notes - The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)(Simon and Garfunkel)) and their song "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" at the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100.  

"Travelin' Band' was part of a rare "double A-side" single where neither song was designated as a "B" side due to both songs being predetermined as hits.  Proof of this is the fact that "Who'll Stop the Rain" is the flip side of this record (also, #2...I guess they predetermined correctly!).  This single was one of three "double-sided" singles to be released from the Creedence album Cosmo's Factory.  Due to the strength of its singles, the album is listed at #413 on Rolling Stone's updated 2020 edition of the "500 Greatest Albums of All-Time" list. "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" - Rolling Stone Magazine, September 22, 2020 - genius.com

"Travelin' Band" was inspired by the musical stylings of Little Richard which fit well with the range and style of Fogerty.  In 1972 there were deemed to be so many similarities to Little Richard, that the publishing company who owned the rights to "Good Golly Miss Molly" sued the band for plagiarism.  The suit was settled out of court.  Yup...you're humming it right now....ooooh (ala Little Richard falsetto).

The song is descriptive of the life that Creedence was living at the time as a "Travelin' Band".  Lost luggage, constant flights, radio interviews, and the occasional "tense" politically demonstrative moments at concerts in the 70s all play their role in the lyric as Fogerty belts it out with his trademark vocals.  Wait...what...the lyrics don't even mention the planning that went into being a "Travelin' Band"!  It bodes the question:  were they really prepared for their journey down the Rock-N-Roll highway?  Maybe they should have taken a few tips from some middle eastern friends.  

As we join the Israelites at the base of Mt. Sinai (yet, again! But soon their gonna move...), we find them making preparations for their journey to the Promised Land.  They had been at the mountain for nearly a year.  Why the delay?  Simple answer?  God needed to get them prepared for their journey.


Remember, by most accounts; there were over 2 million folks that come out of Egypt.  They were slaves whose only rules for 430 years were determined by the work quota that had been made by their Egyptian taskmasters.  They knew very little about any other law or how to govern themselves.  

Alongside the legal influences of their Egyptian masters, during this time they were immersed in the idol worship of the Egyptians.  While many had held on to the hope of a deliverer from the God of their ancestors this would have at the very least slanted their spiritual practices and views. 

As they departed Egypt, they were only sure of 3 things: God had brought them out, He was holy, and their lives were in His hands.  It is remarkable, that in 11 months and 5 days (closing chapters of Exodus to the 10th chapter of Numbers), and only by God's divine providence, that the Israelites were able to get organized into a nation with a legal system and societal structure.  This system also enabled the boundaries by which they would recognize the holiness of God and why He alone should be worshiped.  

To compensate for the 430 years in Egypt, God knew that they would need a concentrated time to prepare for the journey and for the skills and abilities to fight the battles to take over the Promised Land.  

We see this same preparation later in the lives of the 12 disciples of Jesus.  For 3 years, Jesus instructed them on how the laws of Moses and the structure of Israel's religious systems had been hijacked by man and mitigated to a "works" based system of holiness. Jesus also took the time to show them what Godly love looked like and how they were to be emblems of that love to all men.  He taught them that all of Moses' laws and the designs their ancestors had for a government were based on 2 things:  loving God above all else, and loving each other as we love ourselves.  He also taught them that all of the events of Exodus and the writings of Moses pointed to Him (Jesus) and His ultimate display of love on the cross.   

So...what has been the preparation you've made for your journey?  Does each component of your plan align with the 2 principles that Moses pointed to and Jesus explained?  You see friend, we were created as eternal beings.  Where we spend that eternity is dependent on our journey.  Have you asked God for His checklist in your preparation or have you gone from a manifest from man?  Are there items that you forgot and they cost you more to get on the way?  I confess, there have been and probably will certainly be things I've forgotten as I've gone on the odyssey of my life.  We have to repent of that lack of planning and prepare for the next time through God's strength, mercy, and grace.  And then we gotta move...as we're flyin' cross the land, tryin' to get a hand...

'Til Tuesday

Serving HIM by serving You,
randy


 

Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Feel Like a Number" (Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band)


This is a test.  This blog is conducting a test of the Emergency Musicinfo System.  This is only a test... (annoying noise for 23 seconds, yup we checked the timing...) The bloggers of your area in voluntary cooperation with the artists, engineers, and record labels of the music industry have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of a musical emergency.

If this had been an actual musical emergency, the annoying 23 second sound would have been followed by an official drum intro, segueing into guitars riffs, keyboard gliss', and possibly a funky horn section as the situation demanded. Had this been an actual musical emergency you would have also been instructed to cautiously find your way to the nearest concert venue. (Yes, we know this is a dated EMS test...stupid Covid!!!) This blog serves the internetosphere area of all the known world.  This concludes this test of the Emergency Musicinfo System. You are now returned to your regularly scheduled blog already in progress... 

...blog on the planet!  It's Tuesday's Musical Notes!!!  Welcome!

Do you ever get the feeling that your efforts at your place of employment are underappreciated?  You work and work to get things just right only to have that work go unnoticed?  Ever feel like you are #19690 at #9697 instead of Randy, the Store Manager at Hastings Entertainment, Inc.?  I think this is more of a common occurrence than we might realize.  

From the moment we are born we are assigned a Social Security Number.  We use this number as an identifier in many scenarios.  In the United States, this number is used for everything that involves government interaction.  Many organizations assign a numerical identifier to their employees for payroll and benefits purposes, as well as login information to access company systems.  These impersonal means of identification have existed for years as it streamlines corporate databases and makes information seemingly more accessible. But does this replacing of one's name with a number also make recognition an impersonal if not neglected act?  Is it the first step in putting into place systems that enable the end of the world as we know it?  (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "It's the End of the World as We Know It" (R.E.M.))

It's easy to see how one could come to "feel like just another, spoke in a great big wheel, like a tiny blade of grass in a great big field..."



It did not chart however until it was released as the A-side of a single from the 1981 live album Nine Tonight, where it went as far as #48 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles list.  "Feel Like a Number" the A-side was bolstered by having a B-side of "Hollywood Nights", the #12 second single from Stranger in Town.  

Bob Seger has also been heard at the cinema.  He has provided the music for 22 different movies.  Some good...some, well...  "Feel Like a Number" is one of those songs and is featured in 2 films.  The song can be heard in the 1981 William Hurt/Kathleen Turner film Body Heat and the 1993 Bruce Willis/Sarah Jessica Parker movie Striking Distance. (Neither of which Tuesday's Musical Notes recommends). The Seger File: Soundtracks

In a September 14, 1978 article, "Bob Seger is Still the Same", interviewer Steve Morse with The Boston Globe recounts Bob Seger's story behind "Feels Like a Number" 

"I got the idea for the song after watching a show about computer banks and how many names were in them. We're all in computer banks. Lord knows how many data collections there are. Everybody is a number and in the record industry you're also thought of a lot of times as a number — the amount you sell or whatever. Some of the humanity gets lost and the hype takes over. You have to watch out. That's the whole idea of Stranger in Town as an album, actually. It's about identity and trying to survive and keep your identity."  https://www.newspapers.com/clip/25306726/globe-14sep78-p82/

Bob Seger's ode to identity certainly supports the struggle for individualism that we've recently seen become headlines.  While we all exist in the human race (everything else deemed "racial" is actually culture or melanin), that existence is dependent on our individuality.  The name we are given when we are born becomes the humanity part of this equation.  That name signifies our identity to everyone, and for some reason, throughout history, names seem to be a much better way of designating the distinctiveness of who we are as opposed to numbers.     

One stage name that many musicologists, well the ones that read liner notes anyway, know is Alto Reed.  He was the principal saxophonist for the Silver Bullet Band. Sadly, Alto Reed (Thomas Neal Cartmell) succumbed to colon cancer on December 30, 2020, at the age of 72.  A consummate studio musician (dude played with everyone!!!  Alto Reed - wikipedia.org) Reed was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame with his Silver Bullet Band family in 2004. 


2020 was the year in which the news cycle was dominated by a contentious election and the world-wide pandemic.  Had these stories not been the focal point for the year, we would have probably seen news reports regarding the demographic gathering efforts made across the United States that occurs every decade.  Once again, citizens of the United States are relegated to numerical status by discriminating factors.  The census serves as a means by which the government has the information it needs to apportion state aid and draw legislative districts, et. al. It can also provide business and industry with information that can be beneficial for planning and marketing purposes.  While these things can be helpful, they have the unintentional (hmmm...) means of stripping away a person's identity and lumping them into a category in which their assigned number might fit the demo.

This practice of counting folks has been a part of mankind's fabric since the early days of Israel's history.  In fact, the book of Numbers in the Bible is the accounting of the peoples who exited the slavery of Egypt to go to a land promised to them by God.  As we continue our journey through the Bible and its great stories, we will see a number (pardon the pun!!!) of times when a census was taken.  As we will see, when the instructions for a census were from God, there were results that were beneficial for all those involved.  When mankind decided to see how many folks there were, the results were less than favorable.  Keep checking back with us to see which ones are which!!


Any time God commands a leader in the Bible to take a census, it is for a reason.  The census information gathered in the first two chapters of Numbers serves a couple of purposes.

First, the children of Israel were strangers in town.  This meant they were vulnerable to attack at any time and they needed to amass fighting men for defense.  The census provided them with a count by their ancestral tribe of those who were 20 years of age or older.  These men would make up the military might that Israel would need to defend itself as it journeyed to the Promised Land and to conquer the nations who were currently inhabiting that land. Seeing these numbers also provided the nation with a sense of confidence in the fact that they had the numerical might to do those things.  That number? 603,550, about 50% of their total population.  For comparison, as of 2018, the United States had 1.3 million active military personnel of the 327.876 million residents, or 004% of the population.  

Secondly, the census provided a means of organizing each tribe in the camp.  With approximately 1.2 million folks quickly fleeing Egypt and now roaming around the desert, one would imagine a time of organization was needed to get families back into their individual tribes.  

There was one tribal exception to the census taking. The Levitical tribe was set apart for the administration of the tabernacle and the items that would be used in that tabernacle to worship God.  They were directly responsible for the transportation and protection of the first church structure.  Their position of encampment would be surrounding the tabernacle as a means of protecting the other tribes if someone inadvertently disobeyed the very strict instructions regarding the holiness of the tent of meeting.  There would be no need to count the sons of Levi as God would be the provider for all things involving worship, including the number of folks needed to carry the structure and carry out the services.  The Israelites were to be confident in God's strength and might, not their own to provide this service to the nation.

While there were a numbering of people, the people were listed by their individual names in their tribe.  They were never number 658 of Dan's tribe or 1245 of the sons of Naphtali.  God commanded that they be listed by their name.  That's important for us today as we are reminded that God knows us by name.








  

Based on these Scriptures, you can rest confident that the God of all creation knows you by your name, inside and out, knows what His plans are for you, AND He wants a personal, by your name relationship with you!!!  You are not known to him by a set of digits, you are known by Him at the sub-atomic level.  To God, You are not another drone.  To God, you are not a statistic on a sheet.  To God, you are not a file or a consensus on the street.  You are not a stranger in this land to Him, You are not a number, you're a man...or a woman...

'Til Tuesday,

Serving HIM by serving You,  
randy

 

Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Footloose" (Kenny Loggins)



 Happy New Year and welcome to the best blog on the planet about music!!  It's Tuesday's Musical Notes comin' atcha from our palatial 2nd story offices in the heartland of the United States!!!   I'm your host, Randy Cross and for the next little while, we have the opportunity to bond over one of the most precious gifts God ever gave to mankind, music.   Each week we break down a song, a classic from the 80s, a closet oldie that we've not been exposed to, or a new offering from an aspiring artist.  We then take that song and research its origins, trivia, and the artist who recorded it.  Then after a little mind-bending, we take the song to a different level of meaning.  A perspective that perhaps you've never considered.  And we wrap all of this musical goodness in a package we like to call Tuesday's Musical Notes!  Welcome!

Today's song is one for the record books as it comes from one of the biggest soundtracks of all time. Let's get started with this head bobbin', to tappin', feet shufflin' classic from 1984 as we cut loose footloose...Everybody cut, everybody cut...



Songs from the soundtrack to the movie Footloose are part of one of the most easily recognized packages of songs in recorded history.  This iconic record saw 6 of its 9 original tracks go into the top 40 of Billboard's Hot 100, 3 of those 6 shuffled up to the top 10, and 2 strutted all the way to #1.  ("Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams).  On the strength of its singles, the album quickly found its way to the top spot of the Billboard 200 chart for full-length records.  At one point, more people owned the soundtrack than had seen the movie.  We suspect that statistic has changed in the 37 years since its release.  Wait...what?  37 years???

The first single from the soundtrack was the title cut from the movie.  It was co-written and sung by soundtrack legend Kenny Loggins (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "I'm Alright" (Kenny Loggins), "The Songs That Made Kenny Loggins The “King Of Movie Soundtracks” - August 25, 2016, by Velina at myrockmixtape.com, )  Upon its release it instantly hit the charts and only took 3 months to find its way to the top spot, where it spent 3 weeks.    It was the #4 song of the year for 1984 and it along with the aforementioned "Let's Hear It for the Boy" were nominated in the 1985 Academy Award Best Original Song category, neither of them won the award ("I Just Called to Say I Love You" from The Woman in Red by Stevie Wonder (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "Superstition" (Stevie Wonder)) beat them both).  

 "Footloose" has been placed in the American Film Institute's  AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list at #96 and in 2018 it was added for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant".  Significant is right as  "Footloose" is one of those songs that can instantly cause you to get up and move regardless of your age, skin color, or your ability to have any rhythm at all, and nobody judges because "Footloose" is the song in which you must bust a move.   "Everybody cut, everybody cut..."

The movie's and song's premise is the celebration of life as expressed through dancing.  Not a professional or ballroom expression of dance, but a free-form, uninhibited movement of the body.  This expression is encouraged throughout the Bible as our bodies were created to worship God.  "Our Time to Dance" - from Footloose  While there are several decrees about many other things, there aren't any admonitions against dancing in the biggest listing of rules and regulations in the Bible, Leviticus.


Tuesday's Musical Notes encourages you to find a plan and an accountability group to help you read the Bible... You might find some surprising things inside and besides...it does a body good!!!  For those who read the Bible annually, Leviticus tends to be that book that gets a little heavy-handed and at times causes some to fall by the wayside on their New Years' resolution to read the Bible.   Some of the maxims seem archaic and applicable only to an ancient society that was roaming around the desert.  But in context, we must remember this infant nation had been under the influence of the Egyptians for over 400 years.  God was calling them out of slavery and to a higher standard by which to live.   That higher standard was emblematic of the holiness of God and they were to serve as an example of His character to the world.     

As we read through Leviticus, we must attempt to absorb it through the lens of a nation that had NO legal statutes whatsoever.  The ten commandments given in Exodus were specific, yet also general commands.  Leviticus breaks the ten commandments down to the nuance of holiness that God expected of His people.  He provides boundaries for every possible situation in which the Israelites might find themselves.  We must keep in mind that He provides these directives in accordance to HIS nature, not theirs.  

As we have stated before, through the guidance of Holy Spirit, the Bible should be the instrument of conviction for the reader as they navigate read it.  This especially applies to the rules of Leviticus.  Far too many times, well-intentioned believers have used Leviticus as a mode of judgment on those we are called to love.  Judging is not our job.  Applying a rule to someone's life to convict them and make them feel guilty is not our job.  Yes, we can and should hold others accountable, but nowhere in the Bible does it command a believer to act as judge and jury in the conviction of sins.  We are to disciple, mentor, and encourage others to read the Bible allowing it to do what it is intended to do in the process of convicting one of their lostness.  We are then to disciple, mentor, and encourage them to find those passages where God is waiting for them with open arms to provide salvation.  Finally, we are to disciple, mentor, and encourage others to become more like Jesus.  

Speaking of Jesus, many would say that we don't have to follow the rules and regs of Leviticus because Jesus told us that He fulfilled the law and that we are no longer beholden to it.  This "New Testament" church idea is far from the truth.  Here is what Jesus said regarding His relationship to the law:


What does that mean?  It means that Jesus, by living a perfect life, never broke any of the rules that are laid out in Leviticus, and in doing this the law was fulfilled by His obedience to it.  As Holy Spirit enters our life at salvation, He brings the desire for us to become like Jesus, because of this desire, why wouldn't we want to do the very best that we can to live under the rules of Leviticus.  

As believers, we must be cautious of becoming the hypocrites we are accused of being sometimes by picking and choosing the Levitical instructions that we want to apply to our life and everyone else's.  Jesus fulfilled ALL of these laws.  If He is our example, we should find ways to follow those laws.  

As we read Leviticus, it will convict us of things we, not others, do wrong about specific things at specific times in our, not others, life.  Hopefully, as we mature as believers, these rules will become less and less convicting allowing us to celebrate our lives in Jesus and to cut loose...footloose...kick off the Sunday shoes...

'Til Tuesday,

Serving HIM by serving You,
randy
<><

 

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)