Archive for October 2019

Eternal Life Is Knowing You

How wonderful is
God’s revelation of Himself
in Jesus Christ!
The more we know Him,
the more we realize that
all life, joy, and peace is
knowing Him.
We are complete in Jesus Christ.
Sing at Christmas or year round.
The tune is familiar.

Recording
Printed Music

You made us from Yourself, O my God, O my God.
Your mercy calls us back, O my God.
The love that longs to bless,
The needs that we confess
Are You and nothing less, O my God, living God!
Your promise is Yourself, Father God!

Your promise now is here. What a gift: Jesus Christ!
Our Brother and Your Son, Jesus Christ!
All mystery and delight,
All wisdom and all right,
All power, love, and life fill Your Son, Jesus Christ.
We stand complete in Him, Jesus Christ!

What life and light and joy knowing You, knowing You!
We long for nothing else knowing You.
Our childish fear and pride
We gladly throw aside
With hearts now open wide knowing You, knowing You.
Eternal life is this: knowing You!

by Ken Bible, © 2019 LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Reading the Bible 3

Monday –      Treasure God’s Word
Hymn: The Bible Song (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     Beautiful Words

Wednesday – Can We Reasonably Trust the Bible?

Thursday –    Gaining the Mind of Christ

Friday –          Prayers to Begin Bible Reading #1

Saturday –     Prayers to Begin Bible Reading #2

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

The Most Natural Way

All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful
toward those who keep the demands of his covenant. (Psalm 25:10, NIV)

What if it’s all true:
What if all that is was created by a wonderful Being,
more vast and mysterious than the universe itself;
if He formed us and somehow patterned us after himself;
if He loves us as His own children;
if He came to us in person to share our lives,
to deliver us from our wrongness,
to die for us when we couldn’t help ourselves;
if this Creator wants to teach us the happiest way to live . . .
What if it’s all true?

Look at this beautiful, orderly, intricate world. Look at Jesus Christ – His love, His self-sacrifice. Look at yourself. Without God, do you sense a wrongness inside?

If all the above is true, then how should we be living? Shouldn’t we turn to our loving, wise Creator to find the best, the simplest, the most natural way to live?

He has put us here together, His children, to care for each other and to depend on each other. He has given us families, friends, communities. Yet we think and live so selfishly, and so many among us are needy and lonely.

He provides for us beautifully and abundantly day by day. What do we need that His world doesn’t provide? Yet we are anxious, fearful, and greedy.

He wants to enrich us in ways we can’t even imagine. He wants us to know Him better. He wants each of us to have a face-to-face relationship with Him. Yet we consider Him irrelevant and look right past Him.

Look at the people around you. Look within yourself. Is anxiety and selfishness really the most natural way to live? The most common, perhaps, but the simplest, the most peaceful, the most satisfying? In our smallness and helplessness, is it logical to ignore the One who created us?

The One who gives us day and night, sun and rain, work and rest, the One who conceived and shaped this world of ours, cannot He guide us to the most natural way to live?

Cannot He help you become the person you were designed to be, that you want to be?

Is He not listening if you talk to Him right now?

I have a personal, constant relationship with
the Lord of all reality.
We converse freely.
We walk together in relaxed silence,
like loving Parent and child.
What could be more wonderful than this?

Hymn: Present Lord
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Go to the Wilderness!

Through the rough and wild John the Baptist,
God was calling His people
back to the wilderness
where their faith in Him had first been formed.
John was confrontive,
stripping them of their comfortable excuses.
He challenged, warned, and
invited the people with
brutal, unadorned honesty.
For Advent.

Recording
Printed Music

Go to the wilderness!
Hear the voice of God!
His servant speaks the truth untamed,
And not for your applause.
His look is rough and unrefined.
His ways are raw and wild,
And through the fury of his words
God calls to you, His child.

Go to the wilderness!
Go confront your sin.
The Word that brings a storm of guilt
Will speak His peace within.
Confess the truth your heart has heard.
Repent and start to live.
The mercy that condemns your sin
Is longing to forgive.

Come to the wilderness!
Trust your God alone.
His mighty breath can fill your life
With life beyond your own.
So come and live the truth untamed!
Begin your life again,
For here you meet the Sovereign God
As Father and as Friend.

by Ken Bible, © 2010 LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Reading the Bible 2

Monday –      Reflection on Psalm 1
Hymn: Psalm 1 (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     The Blessings of Obedience
Hymn: I Build My Life on You (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Feed the Fire

Thursday –    Saturate Yourself with the Truth

Friday –          Improving God’s Word

Saturday –     A Love Letter

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

God’s Burning Love

God is love (1 John 4:8).
He is deep,
complete,
changeless love.
All He does,
all He says,
all He is
is love.

His love –
deeply desiring the very best for all He has made –
His power –
creating, supporting, and ruling all He has made – and
His wisdom –
completely knowing all He has made –
are infinite and
inseparable.
His love reaches everywhere
His power and His knowing go.
He completely knows and
completely loves
all He has made.
His infinite power,
infinite wisdom, and
infinite love
are simply different aspects of
His all-ness.

There is no indifference in His love –
never,
to not even the slightest degree.
No coolness.
No distance.
No half-heartedness.
No distraction.
No unthinking routine.
His love is a fire
that blazes eternally,
white-hot.

But His love never forces itself on any of us.
He whispers.
He woos.
And yes, He sometimes shouts.
But then He always waits.
He never enters without an invitation.
He watches for even the smallest, weakest response, then
patiently,
unhurriedly,
tenderly,
wisely
fans it into flame,
as His creature allows.

Father, I love You!
Help me to love You and
know You
more and
more.

Hymn: Your Ceaseless, Unexhausted Love
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Psalm 110

Psalm 110 is the Old Testament passage
most often cited in the New Testament.
It is central to our understanding of Jesus Christ.
This hymn enables us to sing its truths
to a classic hymn tune.
Meaningful for Christ the King Sunday or year round.
To a familiar tune.

Recording
Printed Music

Sovereign God, Almighty Father,
You have spoken to Your Son:
“Rule with Me till all is finished,
All love’s perfect will is done.
See Your people, pure and glorious,
Come from every time and place,
Offering all in love and worship,
Grateful lives that sing Your grace.”

Father, what a work You give Him:
Great high priest of all Your love,
Ever-living intercessor,
Ever drawing hearts above,
Praying, saving, cleansing, blessing,
Helping each to understand
Guilt is gone for those He pardons;
None can snatch them from Your hand.

Bathed in all Your boundless glory,
Wielding all Your holy might,
Perfect love with perfect wisdom,
Sun of everlasting light!
Here in Him, Your tender greatness
Shouts what none can fully sing:
Worship, honor, endless praises
Be to Christ, our Priest, our King!

by Ken Bible, © 2019 LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Reading the Bible 1

Monday –      The Bible

Tuesday –     Hymn: Your Sovereign Word (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – What Is the Bible?

Thursday –    Practical Tips for Reading the Bible

Friday –          Welcome the Silence
Hymn: Father, Speak Your Word Again (recording) (printed)

Saturday –     Is the Bible Accurate?
Hymn: The Word of God (recording) (printed)

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

Go Beyond

[Your creatures] all wait for You
To give them their food in due season.
You give to them, they gather it up;
You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good.
You hide Your face, they are dismayed;
You take away their spirit, they expire
And return to their dust.
You send forth Your Spirit, they are created;
And You renew the face of the ground.
(Psalm 104:27-30, NASB)

Go beyond thinking of God
as merely a means to an end,
as a way to obtain more loving relationships or
inner peace or
even everlasting life.

He Himself is the end of all things.
He is our greatest blessing,
our glorious reward,
our eternal destiny.

Love,
inner peace, and
everlasting life
are merely partial descriptions of
all that He is.

Hymn: The Upward Call
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Psalm 26

Here is a piercing hymn of
self-examination and
commitment,
based on Psalm 26.

Recording
Printed Music

I stand exposed, all-seeing God.
You see my need, so deep, so broad.
So test my heart, each thought unheard.
I trust Your love. I trust Your Word.

O Lord, Your truth is my delight!
The world is wrong. I choose the right.
So much is vain. I love Your ways!
My joy, Your will; my breath, Your praise.

With all Your Church I take my stand.
Your whispered Word is our command.
Your glorious Son we keep in view.
We follow Him. We trust in You.

by Ken Bible, © 2018 LNWhymns.com.