Thursday, June 21, 2012

Getting in Tune

My Utmost For His Highest

‘Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: “Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now.” How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.’ CHAMBERS

Our Christian life is not about doing our best to find favor with God .. it is about being our best and the only way we can be our best is to be connected to the VineJohn 15:5  In the song “Come thou Fount”, one stanza says “Tune my heart to sing Thy praise”  Our life is like a guitar string that is out of tune.  Only people with a musical ear will know that it is not in tune … others will think it sounds fine .. that is until a chord is played and then the need for tuning will be very apparent.  I remember a few years ago my friend and Brother, Andrew, and I were preaching and leading worship at a revival in Waveland.  Andrew had laid is guitar down while I spoke.  Unknown to either of us, while I was speaking one of Andrew’s sons has accidentally de-tuned his guitar.  When Andrew came up to lead music, he played the first chord and strange sounds came from his guitar … it took us a minute to figure out what had happened … it would have been very awkward to retune his guitar at that point so Andrew decided we would sing without a guitar accompaniment  …….. God tunes our hearts not only so that the tone emanating from our life will be right, but so when played together with the other strings .. the sound will be wonderful .. rich … pleasing to the Father’s ears.  The song of salvation was meant to be sung with the accompaniment of the Saints … in harmony.

I play the guitar well enough to get a recognizable tune out of it, but when a skilled guitarist picks up the same instrument … you wonder how can such a magnificent sound come out of a guitar … so it is with us in God’s hands.  On our own, our ‘goodness’ might be recognizable to the world, but in the Master’s hands … we are a marvel and a testimony to God’s love, grace and mercy.

So today, tune up and let the world hear your song … to God’s glory and praise.

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)

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