I've moved my blog to wordpress! I've loved blogger, but wordpress offers many more options especially for computer-illiterate people as myself. I've moved all of my old posts there, so you won't have to switch back and forth between sites or anything. So, you can go ahead and check out the new blog, roam around abit, add it to your favorites if you'd like. I won't mind.
http://derekhughes.wordpress.com
I love the complete abandonment that's displayed in this hymn. I pray that someday this can be the true theme of my life, but, let's be honeset- it's hard to give everything to God. As much as we can sing it and pray it, it's a completely different thing to let go of absolutely everything in our lives, and give it to God. Sure, some days are easier than others, and then some days come along where I selfishly horde every last thing in my life that I can get my hands on and proclaim greedily, "Mine! All mine! Look at my treasures! Look at my... my precious!" (sorry for the Lord of the Rings reference, I get a little carried away sometimes). I digress, I invite all of you to make this a prayer as you read this and I encourage you to read it outloud (not that God can hear you better if you say it louder, but it gives the mind a lot less room to wander if you speak these words). Pray this hymn and invite God to take everything in our lives, both good and bad, and make them His.
Take My Life And Let It Be
-Frances R. Havergal (Feb. 1874)
Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.
Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.
I think when it was originally penned, there were some additional lyrics, but this is how it appears in most hymnals today. My third verse is my personal favorite, reminding us all that we can't possibly save ourselves because we owe such a great debt. Our only hope is for God, with His amazing grace, to bind and seal our wandering hearts.
Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing
-Robert Robinson (1758)
Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
I haven't posted in a few days, I haven't spent much time online at all really. Other than typing out chord sheets for an upcoming DNow and church, I've been trying to spend as little time on my computer as possible. I've been doing a lot more reading (see list below, and The Bible) and it's been a nice change. For my next few posts, I am going to post some of my favorite hymns. Sounds lazy?- maybe a little bit. But, with the past few decades of the praise and worship movement, good, solid, biblically-sound lyrics are sometimes hard to find. I'm sure most of you know a lot of these by heart, and I'm sure I'll post some that hardly any of you have ever seen. I pray that God will use these hymns to reveal Himself.
My professor for Aural theory isn't here this week (I'm not sure why, I'm sure the sub told us but I showed up a little late so I didn't hear... maybe she's sick) so we got out of class early this week, all sight singing lessons are cancelled, and we may not have class thursday. This gives me a little surprise free time that I will happily use to read a little and to write a short post. I realized that after my new year's resolutions I had not given you guys an update on some reading that I had promised. So here it is, some stuff I've been reading this year.
1) God Is The Gospel (John Piper)- I didn't start it this year, but I did finish it this year. I took a little break in between my start and stop point so I should really go back and read it again but it was still a great book. It deals with the fact that God himself is the greatest gift of the gospel. "None of Christ's gospel deeds and non of our gospel blessings are good news except as means of seeing and savoring the glory of Christ."
2) The Cross Centered Life (C.J. Mahaney)- This short book (83 pages) can be read in a day if you have a little bit of time to devote to it. I reccomend that everyone check this one out- it talks about centering your life around the cross and "how to escape the pitfalls of legalism, condemnation, and feelings-driven faith." I plan on reading this a few times a year to help keep things in perspective.
3) Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi (David Crowder)- Yes, David Crowder of the David Crowder Band has written a few books. He is really a great author and his odd personality and quirkiness ring loud and clear throughout this books about praise. The goes through 21 of the psalms and dedicates a few pages to each one. I loved reading this book because his narrative style was captivating, but I didn't particularly enjoy his translation choice- The Message. Although it is extremely easy to read, The Message puts an interesting spin on scripture and, sadly, changes the meaning of many passages.
4) Praying: Finding Our Way Through Duty to Delight (J.I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom)- I'm in the middle of this book right now, and yes, you guessed it, it's about praying. I have had a terrible prayer life and God has really convicted me of that so I'm striving to learn more about prayer.
5) The Pilgrims Progress (John Bunyan)- I haven't gotten very far in this classic allegory of the Christian life, but I will definitely finish it. The old english just takes a little longer.
6) Times of Refreshing: A Worship Ministry Devional (Tom Kreuter)- This is actually a devotional with many leading worship leaders in the country as contributors. I haven't finished it but I'm trying to read a few chapters a day- this is another one that I will probably read over and over.
Alright, I know we're only a few days into Feburary but I'm going to go ahead and declare my latest purchase the best deal o' the month. Heck, after you hear about it you'll probably think that it's the greatest deal o' the year and you'll rush out and pick up your own. I was in Wal-Mart the other day and I saw the usual display of Garth Brooks box sets, The Limited Series. Now, these have been out since Christmas two years ago. Garth Brooks signed some new deal with Wal-Mart and they are the exclusive carriers of this 6 disc set which was originally on sale (for pre-order and the day after Thanksgiving special) for $25. I'm not sure what happened, but no one really bought them and they've been stacked on the shelves for a few years now as they continually have marked down the price. Here's where it gets good. The other night I saw that this box set, this 5 cd, 1 promotional dvd box set had been marked down to $9.92. And right above that on the shelf was Garth Brooks, The Entertainer, a 5 DVD set containing 4 different concerts and one disc of music videos- also $9.92. So I walked out of walmart Sevens, Scarecrow, The Lost Sessions, Double Live (a personal favorite), and hours of live footage for about $20. I highly recommend that you go check it out- especially if you're a Garth Brooks fan, a country music fan, or even simply a music fan- either way, you won't be disappointed.
What does it take to get a snow day at UK? Does anyone know if there are certain requirements that must be met before class is cancelled? Let me tell you, it's no fun walking to class in the snow- the ground is covered with about an inch of snow, the sidewalks are covered with about an inch of pure slush, and it's still coming down like crazy. And although it's only 10 o clock, there is a large gathering of sledders at a nice hill on campus- does no one have class? And even if they were going to skip class, why would they go out so early... sleep in, people!
Ok, rant over. It's not really that bad out there in all honesty. It feels warmer today than its felt all week and the snow is actually a nice change from the dry, biting cold.
And, if anyone is interested I just posted my top five JMB songs on the JMB blog. Go check it out.
My Honors class is going through a large part of the New Testament for the next few weeks. The professor has told us to read Acts, most of Romans, I Corinthians 6-7, Ephesians, I Timothy, and Philemon as we study the early church and it's role in the history of Rome. For our text we are using The Unvarnished New Testament translated by Andy Gaus. The description on the back reads: "This new, innovative translation of the New Testament opens the closed doors of preconception and allows the reader to view these important Greek writings in an entirely different light... Most translations of the New Testment are made by committees; they interpret the original text through theological doctrines and dogmas which arose centuries after the books were written... Andy Gaus presents the New Testament as it would have appeared to someone reading the original, unvarnished Greek- as though 2,000 years of Christian history had not occured." So, pretty much, Mr. Gaus taken the original Greek and translated it, just like someone would take the Iliad and translate it into English. He has done this so that years and years of religous thought won't get in the way and persuade the text one way or another. But, even as he has tried to take the religious history away from the bible, God's word still rings loud and clear. It's not the "2,000 years of religious history" that makes the bible true and infallible, it's the author. Although we aren't going to get into any theological debates (yeah, right) and we are reading the text to learn about the history of the early church, I know that God will still use His living word to work in the hearts of those who read it. I'm so thankful that we've been given this assignment... now, if I could only convince my geology teacher to teach us the history of the earth straight from Genesis...
