God Blog

• “Music is the universal language of mankind.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• “Music can change the world because it can change people.” - Bono

• “Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.” - Edward Bulwer-Lytoon

• “Can a mere song change a people's minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.” - Elvis Costello

• “Music has power to create a universe or to destroy a civilization.” - Kathrine Neville

• “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12 1-2 MSG

• “The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.” 2 Corinthians 10:5-6 MSG

• “Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.” Philippians 4:8-9 MSG

• “If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” 2 Timothy 2:12-13 NKJV

• “Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 1 Corinthians.” 15:33 AMP

• “Christ gave up his life for that person. Wouldn’t you at least be willing to give up going to dinner for him—because, as you say, it doesn’t really make any difference? But it does make a difference if you hurt your friend terribly, risking his eternal ruin! When you hurt your friend, you hurt Christ. A free meal here and there isn’t worth it at the cost of even one of these “weak ones.” So, never go to these idol-tainted meals if there’s any chance it will trip up one of your brothers or sisters.” 1 Corinthians 8”11-13 MSG

• “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent even then of the works of their hands, so as to cease worshiping and paying homage to the demons and the idols of gold and of silver and of bronze and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries (drugs, intoxications) nor of their [sexual] immorality nor of their thefts.” Revelation 9:20-12 AMP

• “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

When you feel my heat. Look into my eyes.
It’s where my demons hide. It’s where my demons hide.
Don’t get too close. It’s dark inside.
It’s where my demons hide. It’s where my demons hide.

When the curtain’s call. Is the last of all . When the lights fade out.
All the sinners crawl. So they dug your grave. And the masquerade.
Will come calling out. At the mess you made

Don’t want to let you down. But I am hell bound Though this is all for you.
Don’t want to hide the truth.
No matter what we breed. We still are made of greed.
This is my kingdom come. This is my kingdom come.

When you feel my heat. Look into my eyes.
It’s where my demons hide. It’s where my demons hide.
Don’t get too close. It’s dark inside.
It’s where my demons hide. It’s where my demons hide.
Click here for full lyrics and music video

Metallica’s Sad But True offers a less concealed song and performance:

Hey (hey)
I'm your life
I'm the one who takes you there
Hey (hey)
I'm your life
I'm the one who cares
They (they)
They betray
I'm your only true friend now
They (they)
They'll betray
I'm forever there

I'm your dream, make you real
I'm your eyes when you must steal
I'm your pain when you can't feel
Sad but true

I'm your dream, mind astray
I'm your eyes while you're away
I'm your pain while you repay
You know it's sad but true
Sad but true

You (you)
You're my mask
You're my cover, my shelter
You (you)
You're my mask
You're the one who's blamed
Do (do)
Do my work
Do my dirty work, scapegoat
Do (do)
Do my deeds
For you're the one who's shamed

I'm your dream, make you real
I'm your eyes when you must steal
I'm your pain when you can't feel
Sad but true

I'm your dream, mind astray
I'm your eyes while you're away
I'm your pain while you repay
You know it's sad but true
Sad but true

I'm your dream
I'm your eyes
I'm your pain

I'm your dream (I'm your dream)
I'm your eyes (I'm your eyes)
I'm your pain (I'm your pain)
You know it's sad but true

Hate (hate)
I'm your hate
I'm your hate when you want love
Pay (pay)
Pay the price
Pay, for nothing's fair

Hey (hey)
I'm your life
I'm the one who took you there
Hey (hey)
I'm your life
And I no longer care

I'm your dream, make you real
I'm your eyes when you must steal
I'm your pain when you can't feel
Sad but true

I'm your truth, telling lies
I'm your reason, alibis
I'm inside, open your eyes
I'm you

Sad but true

2. Immoral: A innumerable number of modern songs pay homage to unrestrained sexuality which would have been considered immoral for almost all of the last two millennia of church history.

3. Violent: Thousands of songs glorify violence of various kinds and outcomes. Hip Hop and it’s sub genre’s including Gangsta Rap are notorious in regards to such content:

• "You and your husband have a Aght/One of you tries to grab a knife, and during the struggle/He accidentally gets his Adam's apple sliced (No!)/And while this is going on, his son just woke up/And he walks in, she panics/And he gets his throat cut (Oh my God!)/So now they both dead, and you slash your own throat/So now it's double homicide and suicide with no note.” “KIM” by Eminem Click here for full lyrics and music video

• "Man, if we was up north, niggas would have been fucked you/But then we in the streets, niggas should haven been stuck you/Plucked you like a chicken wit' your head cut off/They'll And you wit' your back open and your legs cut off/And as for your man, don't you ever in your mothafuckin' life/Know when I gotta gun come at me wit' a knife, a'ight?/And forgetting you ever saw me is the best thing to do/Don't give a fuck about your family, they'll be resting with you.” “X-IS COMING” by DMX Click here for full lyrics and music video

I hurt myself today. To see if I still feel.
I focus on the pain. The only thing that's real.
The needle tears a hole. The old familiar sting.
Try to kill it all away. But I remember everything.

What have I become. My sweetest friend.
Everyone I know goes away. In the end
And you could have it all. My empire of dirt
I will let you down. I will make you hurt.
(you stay the hell away from me you hear)

I wear this crown of thorns. Upon my liar's chair.
Full of broken thoughts. I cannot repair.
Beneath the stains of time. The feelings disappear.
You are someone else. I am still right here.

What have I become. My sweetest friend.
Everyone I know goes away. In the end
And you could have it all. My empire of dirt
I will let you down. I will make you hurt.

If I could start again. A million miles away.
I would keep myself. I would find a way.

8. Romantic: The demand for and marketing of romantic/sexual fulfillment skyrocketed during the 1960’s sexual revolution. More often than not as a cry for and/or over immorality. Since this period, self centered love has been romanticized over and beyond the selfless variety throughout all media outlets. This scarlet thread runs through ten thousand song across all genres with more or less widow dressing as in Queens’ “Get Down, Make Love” or Robert Palmer’s Addicted To Love.

Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your mind is not your own
Your heart sweats, your body shakes
Another kiss is what it takes
You can't sleep, you can't eat
There's no doubt, you're in deep
Your throat is tight, you can't breathe
Another kiss is all you need
Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love
You see the signs, but you can't read
You're running at a different speed
Your heart beats in double time
Another kiss and you'll be mine, a one track mind
You can't be saved
Oblivion is all you crave
If there's some left for you
You don't mind if you do
Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your will is not your own
You're heart sweats and teeth grind
Another kiss and you'll be mine
Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love

9. Relational: Songs featuring family and friends can be among the most moving. Lauding or lamenting deep feelings strike resonating cords within us all. The question is to what end? Do they reinforce the privilege and responsibility of relationships and thus engender righteous commitments or more the opposite?


10. Religious: Modern Christian music majors on the popular doctrine of unconditional love from and for God. The proliferation of such comforting and personalized messages account for both Churchianity’s eager acceptance and a rapid rise in global sales. Unfortunately, assuming salvation by mistaking presumption for faith has resulted in an nearly wholesale watering down of the concept and content of “acceptable worship.”

Simply put, the most immediate problem with modern worship is modern worshipers. Worldliness, accentuated by doctrinal errors and apathy, has and continues to metastasize throughout modern Christendom. Truth be told, the average high school football player invests ten times more diligence in playing a game than the average Christian does in seeking God. Add to this that we daily spend more time watching a couple of commercial breaks than stopping to seriously pray and you have a recipe for devilish apathy and worse.

Happily for us Jesus often invited, “Let those with ears hear…” As in the 1st century so in the 21st. “ Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” So the question then becomes, what style of song would God find acceptable from the likes of us?

An immediate transition from superficial songs leading to somewhat dishonest worship to that of broken repentance leading to radical discipleship would be as wise as it is unlikely. More achievable is developing a taste for honesty and authenticity by slight edits in lyrics and/or our selection in music as in the following examples.

Many contemporary worship choruses and songs can easily be turned from presumptive to prayerful with modest lyric alteration. The principal can be as simple as substituting a declarative word or phrase with a request. For example:

1. Lord, I love You with all my heart.

2. Lord, help me love You with all my heart.

In example #1 we are declaring to love God with “all” our hearts, with mountains of evidence to the contrary.

In example #2 we’ve replaced a likely falsehood with a heartfelt petition. This tiny correction may well turn a self-curse into a repentive prayer for sanctification and commitment. Far from watering down worship, such rare spiritual honesty becomes the bedrock of genuine faith, an important step in the kind of transformative praise and service God finds pleasing. For an extensive handling of this subject see Acceptable Worship.


Blues And Worse

Music can either soothe or savage the soul. As Scripture’s beloved 150 Psalms attest, music has an emotional and spiritual place in this life if not eternity. It’s designed to resonate and take part in an unfolding Cosmic drama as the history of heaven overflows contouring earth’s.

Modern music is also an understandable if not always reasonable response to mankind’s chief challenge and complaint, the apparent silence and distance of God. As the Moody Blues’s Question eloquently put it:

Why do we never get an answer
when we're knocking at the door?
With a thousand millions questions
about hate and death and war.

It's where we stop and look around us
there is nothing that we need.
In a world of persecution
that is burning in it's greed.

Why do we never get an answer
when we're knocking at the door?
Because the truth is had to swallow
that's what the wall of love is for…

I'm looking for someone to change my life.
I'm looking for a miracle in my life.
And if you could see what it's done to me
to loose the love I knew
could safely lead me through.
Click here for full lyrics

It may well be argued that across time and genre music arises from this question of questions. From the sorrow of blues and country to the anger of rock and rap, enticed and poorly framed issues of God fill the air waves and net. Interestingly these very cries are reminiscent of Scripture’s greatest psalmists and prophets. Isaiah’s “Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend” sounds a lot like the haunting melody and lyrics of Contact by the screamo-progressive alternative Christian band As Cities Burn:

Hearts aren't really our guides.
We are truly alone.
'Cause God ain't up in the sky,
Holding together our bones.

Remember we used to speak.
Now I'm starting to think,
Your voice was really my own,
Bouncing off the ceiling back to me.

God, this can't be.
God, this can't be,
God, could it be that all we see is it?

Come down, heaven.
Won't you come down?
Won't you cut through the clouds?
Won't you come down?

Oh, my heaven, why do you have doors to close?
Do you have clouds to stop his voice on the way down?

God, this can't be.
God, this can't be,
God, could it be that all we see is it?

God, does grace reach to this side of madness?
'Cause I know this can't be,
The great peace we all seek.

Come down, heaven.
Won't you come down?
Won't you cut through the clouds?
Won't you come down?

Did your clouds stop HIs voice?
And, brother, have you found
The great peace that we all seek
You say take a look around
If there's a God, then He must be asleep

God must be asleep
God must be asleep
God must be asleep
God must be asleep
Click here for full lyrics and music video

Like creation, human nature abhors a vacuum. To this extent we are all telling and/or singing ourselves a story. When well meaning or even feeble attempts to seek and serve God seem to go unrewarded, we fill in the details creating endless dramas along the way. In hopes of finding happiness, a term rarely defined, we fail to realize it’s not the trinkets (Johnny Cash’s “empire of dirt”) we seek to be filled with but the very Glory of God.

This is nowhere more clear than in the New Testament’s primary yet nearly universally underappreciated offer of complete transformation into a New Creation by the inconceivably costly atonement of Christ enabling genuine sensitivity to and the Divine infilling of the Holy Spirit. Through honesty and repentance, reflective prayer and study (hard to do with minds and hearts beating to the Piped Piper of modern music) the Bible encourages valuing and developing the Kingdom within.

In so doing, we are promised to become part of God’s doxology, a priceless masterpiece of eternal art. Now that's something worth writing songs about.

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