A long time ago... (grade school)

In a galaxy far, far away... (actually a block from where I sit.)

I used to invite my buddy, Tom, to Sunday School, and VBS, but RARELY would he come near church.  He was always an awesome artist, his art work looked as if copied from a high quality comic. (But they wouldn't include that much gore.)  And he always had a huge heart.

When I left High School, I lost touch with him, (and almost all my friends) when I joined the USMC.  Now, Tom is a Christian, and has started a web page!  Praise God!

I want to share a portion from his "Music" section:

Two days before I left Panama, we were all in the van driving to work. I was listening to my mp3 player, as I usually did. It was great because we would inevitably get stuck at the canal for almost an hour, and also because it drowned out my annoying coworkers–and believe me, they would annoy Mother Theresa. And like usually happens, God knew better than me what I needed. After the first week, it became part of my devotional time–I would just put on my worship playlist and go.

On this particular morning, the first song that came on when we stopped at the canal was this TobyMac song called “The Slam,” which is one I usually skip over. Never really thought much about listening to it–I didn’t care for his intro. This time, I stopped and listened to the words and this particular verse about John the Baptizer kept repeating in my head.

They came from the cities and towns all around
To see the longhaired preacher from the desert get down
Waist high in water, never short on words, he said
Repent, the kingdom of heaven can be yours
But he stopped in the middle of his words and dropped
Down to his knees and said, behold the Lamb of God
He’s the one, the slam, don’t you people understand?
You’re staring at the son, God’s reaching out his hand

John the Baptist was really an amazing person. To start with, he fearlessly proclaimed the word of God, regardless of potential consequence. And he also foretold of the coming messiah,¨the thongs of whose sandals he was not worthy to untie.

And what I was thinking about was that not only did John recognize that a messiah was coming and the kingdom of Heaven was near, he recognized Jesus when He came. Not everyone did. Think about it. When Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, he probably had to walk through a crowd of people that had come to hear John. And there were Pharisees among them. But Jesus ventured through the throng, and was baptized by an obedient John.

Behold the Lamb of God.

I wonder, how many of us would recognize Jesus if He came in such a way today? Think about it, just for a minute. What if you were at church? What if your pastor was right in the middle of a sermon, and then dropped to his knees in the pulpit when some scruffy looking guy in jeans and a work shirt came in?

Would you recognize him, too? Or, to steal from Brennan Manning, would you think your pastor’s cheese was sliding off his cracker?

I wonder what I would do? I like to think I have enough discernment that I’d be able to recognize

the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world

I like the way he put this.  If you're not familiar with the song, you can check it out here:

God bless!

Tags: Middle JD Audio Video

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