It’s time for baseball. The longest season in all of professional sports is about to begin. Think about it. With spring training starting the end of February and the World Series now stretching into early November, there are only two months out of the year without a professional baseball game scheduled. We are about to enter 10 months of baseball. No wonder Marti doesn’t like this sport. Not only does she think the games are long and boring, the season, in her opinion, is long and boring, too.
“Oh ‘spew thee out of my mouth!’”
Growing up on King James English, at least where the Bible was concerned, this used to be one our favorite sayings among my Christian friends: “Oh ‘spew thee out of my mouth!’” We used it when we were not happy with someone. It’s a phrase that definitely gets your attention. I understand this at a visceral level. I’ll drink coffee hot or iced, but coffee that’s been sitting there for a while and is now at room temperature, or even partially warm, I’ll get it in my mouth and just spit it out. I used to think this verse was about regurgitation, but I think it’s more at an introductory level. God’s relationship with someone with a mediocre commitment is not going to go very far. I think that’s the picture here.
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins — and not only our sins but the sins of all the world. 1John2:1-2
Think about that. If Christ’s sacrifice on the cross atones for the sins of all the world, then if everybody believed, repented and accepted God’s sacrificial offering for sin by Jesus Christ, then everybody would be saved. Which raises an interesting question: What would we feel about that?
“Now we are convinced that there is nothing that can undermine our democracy. Not a single aspect of Ukrainian life is and will ever be fragile. Our strength is a powerful contribution to the strength of all freedom-loving nations in the world,” – President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine upon the occasion of President Biden’s surprise visit today
I awoke this morning unaware that it was an American holiday. The only thing that tipped me off this morning was an ad in the newspaper for a furniture store announcing a Presidents Day sale. Presidents Day? When is Presidents Day? I checked online to find out, lo and behold, it was today. Gee thanks for letting me know. It’s a holiday. I could have slept in.
I remembered when there used to be two holidays celebrating our most revered Presidents: Lincoln’s birthday (February 12) and Washington’s birthday (February 22). Later they were combined into one Presidents Day that is supposed to be a celebration of all the Presidents. However you can tell that this year, this holiday did not get much attention. Little wonder when you think of how the office of the President of the United States has lost its luster with our last two Presidents receiving the lowest ratings in years.
It used to be the President of the United States was the most prestigious job in the world. Now, who wants it? All the more reason we should pray for the President, whoever he/she is or may be. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:2 to “pray for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.” And we need to pray for democracy in general but especially for America as the leader of the free world. There is no perfect government, but democracy provides for the greatest amount of individual freedom, including religious freedom. Join me in praying for America and for democracies around the world, and especially for Ukraine.
As believers who have been rescued from the stereotype, we share a strong sense of passion for the possible, knowing there never was a night or a problem that could defeat a sunrise or a hope. As the unstoppable Helen Keller put it, “The world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it.”
We all experience long and hard trials that are frustrating and disappointing. Even so, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose hope… If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose the courage to be – that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.”
Hope is a spiritual commodity that is available to all believers. Hope is not based on circumstances. One of our readers shared with me a scene from the World War II movie, Dunkirk. Two soldiers are pinned down in a fierce firefight when one peers out to sea with his binoculars. “What do you see?” said the other. “Hope,” was the reply, because he was seeing a fleet of ships coming to their rescue. That is actually a hope realized. The circumstances are telling them something different from what they are currently experiencing. But real hope — the biblical kind of hope — is what operates when you don’t see anything through those binoculars but an empty sea, and yet your heart still believes. Real hope is a solid substance that is in your heart regardless. It is hope in the unseen.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Faith gives hope substance. It is the solid evidence in our hearts on which our hope rests. Hope by itself is no more than a wish, but hope based on faith is a solid reality. “For people like us in places like this,” hope grounded in faith is just what we need.
[Note: This particular concert video (click on the title below) features Robert Levon Been on bass and lead vocal. He is the son of Michael Been who originally write this song and sang it in his group The Call. Michael died tragically of a heart attack in 2010 while running sound in a concert in Europe featuring his son’s group. So when Robert sings “through the grief, through the heartache, through the tears” he is grappling on the spot with all those things in relation to his father’s death, and yet choosing to still believe, and still to sing his father’s song. It is indeed a poignant moment.]
by Michael Been and The Call
I been in a cave for forty days
Only a spark to light my way
I wanna give out, I wanna give in
This is our crime, this is our sin
But I still believe, I still believe
Through the pain and through the grief
Through the lives, through the storms
Through the cries and through the wars
Oh, I still believe
And flat on my back out at sea
Hopin’ these waves, don’t cover me
I’m turned and tossed upon the waves
When the darkness comes, I feel the grave
But I still believe, I still believe
Through the cold and through the heat
Through the rain and through the tears
Through the crowds and through the cheers
Oh, I still believe
I’ll march this road, I’ll climb this hill
Upon on my knees if I have to
I’ll take my place up on this stage
I’ll wait ’til the end of time for you like everybody else
I’m out on my own, walkin’ the streets
Look at the faces that I meet
I feel like I, like I want to go home
What do I feel? What do I know?
But I still believe, I still believe
Through the shame and through the grief
Through the heartache, through the tears
Through the waiting, through the years
For people like us in places like this
We need all the hope that we can get
Oh, I still believe
“God so loved the world that He gave …”
Is there any love greater? Nothing can compare. There is no story as good as this one, no love as pure.
And here’s the wonderful truth, we can all claim it as our own. He loves me. Absolutely. Completely. You can even be selfish about it. I can talk about how He loves you, and you can talk about how He loves me, but we can both claim His love for our own as well. He loves us. “Jesus loves me this I know …”
In the Jesus Movement of the late 60s early 70s, it only took a few minutes for most people to pray and receive Christ. People were ready. It was almost like John the Baptist had already paved the way for Jesus. People knew something was up.
REGISTER NOW AT CREATINGANEWSONG.COM
CREATING A NEW SONG OF DELIVERANCE & HOPE SPECIAL EVENT
God is moving. This we know. And to a person, every Jesus Music artist and influencer participating in this event, Creating a New Song of Deliverance and Hope, is anticipating something coming.
The energy is palpable. The blood is flowing and the heart beating. It is an awakening of a vision: to bring forward the Jesus Movement’s prophetic message to a waiting generation.
You do not want to miss seeing those who have consistently lived within the prophetic message over these last 50 years. Help us welcome on Saturday, February 11 at 7:00 Eastern Paul Clark, Nancy Honeytree, Glenn Kaiser, Barry McGuire, Randy Stonehill, John Fischer, Noel Paul Stookey and Ingemar Olsson.
Come and hear this prophetic message for our times. Register today (creatinganewsong.com) to be part of this special event on February 11 at 7:00 Eastern.
Those registering before February 11 at 4:00 Eastern will receive John Fischer’s album Dark Horse and his fiction novel Dark Horse audio book. Expect to receive special surprise gifts from some of our guest artists!
REGISTER NOW (creatinganewsong.com) to gain access to the Creating A New Song of Deliverance and Hope event on February 11 at 7:00 Eastern, 6:00 Central and 4:00 Pacific.
A link will be emailed out close to the date of the event to those who register
Help Us Spread the Word
Cut and Paste this Notice and Send it to Your Friends and Families by Email or through Your Social Media Platforms like Facebook
I’m not sure who first said it, but it’s become pretty much of a commonly held belief now that 80 is the new 60. As a leader and participant in the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s, I’ll believe anything that makes me younger. The truth is that age is in your head. There are 20-year-olds who are older than me and 80-year-olds who are younger.
REGISTER NOW AT CREATINGANEWSONG.COM
CREATING A NEW SONG OF DELIVERANCE & HOPE SPECIAL EVENT
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11 AT 7:00 EASTERN
God is moving. This we know. And to a person, every Jesus Music artist and influencer participating in this event, Creating a New Song of Deliverance and Hope, is anticipating something coming.
The energy is palpable. The blood is flowing and the heart beating. It is an awakening of a vision: to bring forward the Jesus Movement’s prophetic message to a waiting generation.
You do not want to miss seeing those who have consistently lived within the prophetic message over these last 50 years. Help us welcome on Saturday, February 11 at 7:00 Eastern Paul Clark, Nancy Honeytree, Glenn Kaiser, Barry McGuire, Randy Stonehill, John Fischer, Noel Paul Stookey and Ingemar Olsson.
Come and hear this prophetic message for our times. Register today (creatinganewsong.com) to be part of this special event on February 11 at 7:00 Eastern.
Those registering before February 11 at 4:00 Eastern will receive John Fischer’s album Dark Horse and his fiction novel Dark Horse audio book. Expect to receive special surprise gifts from some of our guest artists!
REGISTER NOW (creatinganewsong.com) to gain access to the Creating A New Song of Deliverance and Hope event on February 11 at 7:00 Eastern, 6:00 Central and 4:00 Pacific.
A link will be emailed out close to the date of the event to those who register
Help Us Spread the Word
Cut and Paste this Notice and Send it to Your Friends and Families by Email or through Your Social Media Platforms like Facebook
I have finally found a place to live
In the presence of the Lord
– Eric Clapton
That was then; this is now. My purpose for turning back the clock on the Jesus Movement is to show how God periodically breaks in on history, and when He does, it’s to bring us back to Jesus. Jesus alone. Simplify. Clear out the clutter. And it’s not just the message about Jesus we’re talking about, it is the person and presence of Jesus. Jesus and nothing else. It’s the presence that changes everything.
How easy it is for the church and Christians in general to drift to other matters of importance that crowd out Jesus and the whole point of being a Christian. Things like church attendance, politics, social issues, religion, morality, fear, safety, and the creation of a Christian culture can all dominate our time and attention, and suddenly, we are no longer focused on the presence of the Lord. We are taken up with other things. They may be good things, but the good will always be the enemy of the best if the good is all you have. The best is Jesus; and when you have Jesus, you have everything else.
The Jesus Movement was actually ushered in by the secular culture. The Holy Spirit set the stage. As early as the mid-sixties the pop market saw a number of songs about the end of the world, judgment day and getting right with God. Jesus started showing up in popular song lyrics, and then in 1969, in their only album as Blind Faith, Steve Winwood sang Eric Clapton’s, “I have finally found a place to live in the presence of the Lord.” The second time he sings,“I have finally found a way to live in the color of the Lord,” and to me, that is a poetic statement of what happens when you live in the presence of the Lord: His presence colors everything.
When everything is focused on the Lord, everything reflects His glory and His intentions. You live in the color of the Lord.
This is what we have been waiting for. We are at that place in history again where Jesus is breaking through. Look and listen. Distinctions are falling away. The division that has caused so much hurt and pain is over when Jesus comes. In Jesus we are all one. There is no distinction in Christ — no class, no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, rich or poor, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. In Christ we are one — “one body and one Spirit, just as [we] were called to one hope when [we] were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).
It’s all about Jesus. And when we step into Jesus, we come together as one, in the presence of the Lord.
The Jesus Movement that is getting so much attention these days is over. But try telling that to the eight guests we are having on an online panel this Saturday at 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern (see below). They will take some issue with that because they are doing the same thing they were doing 50 years ago, and they haven’t skipped a beat. No one told them that Jesus wasn’t moving anymore. So they’re still going.
John Fischer The Catch 