Three phrases from one song. Hope you catch their import from the start, the song is built around them, so live them, if you will: Haste, haste, to bring Him laud, Run, don’t walk!! Think of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. We’ve been twenty centuries, trying to fulfill the great commission. It began with Yeshua. Then 12 and then seventy and then there were thousands following the Acts 2 experience. Then, 17 years later, the church really began out of Antioch and the mission travels of Paul and Barnabas, later Silas. Who of us will follow in their footsteps? Who will be another Corrie Ten Boom, another Brother Andrew (who smuggled bibles into Russia). Who’ll follow in Billy Graham’s shoes, Jesse Miller (who founded what is now Cadence) or Bill Bright? How about you? How about me? Will anyone attempt to follow in the footsteps of the Wesley’s? Selah Hail, hail the Word made flesh, In the song “Pass it On”, which was the theme song for Explo ’72, there’s a line that says “I’ll shout it from the mountain top ; PRAISE G-D!!! I want my world to know.” Well, do yah? How about you going to the high places in your city and get the loudest amplifier and repeat that line? Wouldn’t that be a little thing, though. What if you began right now, to go around your city and sing Christmas Carols (not “Grandma got run over by a reindeer”). Even just the first lines. And then after Christmas grab a hymn book and start singing. Keep mobile, they can’t stop you from singing as you walk from place to place, can they? What can be done by one person or ten or a hundred? Joy, joy for Christ is born, What’s the first letter? What’s it stand for in this acronym? Jesus. He’s the root of all joy, in the first place. Give me that. OK? So, we put JESUS first. Give Him top billing, He’s earned it. Now, for letter 2. What do you put into second place in your life after putting JESUS first? What example did He set? Where were His priorities? Where are yours? Think of OTHERS before your OWN self. Jesus, then others and then we come to WHY!!! Do you think that the Christian life is only about the J and then the O? Do you not think, that YOU fit into the equation somewhere? Well, put YOURSELF in the 3rd slot. JESUS, OTHERS, YOURSELF. Oh, by the way, this just hit me, being Jewish. Leave off JESUS and you have OY, which according to the dictionary means: used especially to express exasperation or dismay. In other words, the opposite of JOY. The song those lines come from, if you don’t recognize them is the following https://youtube/watch?v=nwyvWQxoVhk
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 12:47:40 +0000