“Someone” (?) requested this song, I Believe. “Not exactly a Christian song,” he (or she) said. But it brought to my mind St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead…” (Romans 1:20). In other words, we come to know God, the Creator, by observing all the good things He has created. So in that sense, I Believe is a kind of hymn.
P.S.: I remember Frankie Laine–he sang the theme for Rawhide.
Why do our animals love us? Because God made both them and us, and God is love. By this, Jesus said, people will know that you are His: that you love one another.
We see much of God’s nature from the things He has made (Romans 1: 20).
Requested by Erlene, Near to the Heart of God, sung by the Sharon Mennonite Bible Institute choir. And boy, look at these scenes of beauty: this is God telling us what Our Creator is like. All we have to do is pay attention!
“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead…” (Romans 1:20)
I have a bee in my bonnet this morning: supposed “scholars”–they think we won’t be able to see they’re atheists–trying to convince us that certain Christmas carols are nothing but old pagan stuff with Christian trappings, and that Christmas itself is nothing but a pagan winter festival under another name.
It is an old, old heresy to say that the physical world of matter, nature, the human body, etc., is altogether wicked and that only the spiritual is good; and therefor only pagans can appreciate nature, blah-blah. So if I respond to the sight of cardinals perched on an evergreen bough in the snow, if I have an emotional response to the colors: bright red, soft brown, white and green–well, heck, that must mean I’m not a Christian… because, you see, all those colors had secret meanings to the Druids–
How do you type a Bronx cheer?
The Bible tells us God created all these things and took pleasure in them, and pronounced them very good (Genesis 1:31). Furthermore, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20)–but pagans in their error worship the things that have been created, rather than the Creator (v. 25).
Christmas is a very sense-engaging holiday. Think bright colors, think good food, think music. It is not required of Christians that we not enjoy such things! If someone honors God by not partaking in this holiday, while we honor God by enjoying it–well, fine: either way, God is honored.
I mean to revel in Christmas with a clear conscience. It’s a way for me to proclaim that Christ did indeed come in the flesh, as an indisputable historical event that no amount of pseudo-intellectual pettifogging can erase.
And they can take their blatherings about “the stag god” with them, a long way off a short pier.