A quick shout to Ms. Mary Roach who prepaid for me and several others to get a copy of Casting Crowns newest CD – “The Altar and The Door”. Ms. Mary you are da’ bomb! This collection of songs is incredible!! If you don’t have this CD yet, run – do not walk – to a store and buy it.
I have realized while typing this that this post will need to be in multiple posts to keep it form being too long. With that being said - on to the post. The title of this post is the first track on the new Casting Crown cd “The Altar and The Door”. This song is beyond great. It hits me in the heart – right where I am living right now. After listening to this track over and over I decided to go to the Casting Crowns website and do a little research to check out the back ground on this song. The following is what I found:
Galatians is the main basis for this song.
False teachers were slipping in and adding to the Gospel. Jesus + being good = the believer’s life. Paul builds in a foundation for the Galatian people that it is by faith in Jesus that we are saved.
Even today, we, the church, are in danger of adding to the Gospel. Jesus plus my denomination. Jesus plus our style of worship. Jesus plus good behavior. We must be careful not to strap ourselves to the Gospel.
The last statement that is made – “we must not strap ourselves to the Gospel” – really took some chewing on for me to understand what is being said. The conclusion that I came to is this – if we strap ourselves to the Gospel we bring ourselves – our preconceived ideas, our agendas, our likes and our dislikes to the Gospel. What we need to understand is that the Gospel stands on it own – without our help. God does not need us for His Gospel to do its work. God allows us to be a part of what He is doing – it is our privilege granted by God. The Holy Spirit makes the changes in people’s lives – He does not need not our rules, demands, or preferences.
One last thing to finish today’s post – the following is from the song – spoken by teenagers, from the sound of their voices:
“People aren’t confused by the gospel they are confused by us
Jesus is the only way to God but we are not the only way to Jesus
This world doesn’t need my tie, my hoodie, my denomination or my translation of the bible,
They just need Jesus
We can be passionate about what we believe but we can’t strap ourselves to the gospel because we are just slowing it down
Jesus is going to save the world but maybe the best thing we can do is just get out of the way.”
Until next time – keep your eyes on Jesus and watch the Gospel change lives.
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