Archive for March 2020

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Relationships That Are Difficult 1

Monday –      Love’s Wisdom

Tuesday –     Use Me
Hymn: Share Your Father’s Heart (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Loving Difficult People
Hymn: God of All People (recording) (printed)

Thursday – Hard Changes

Friday –          Tense Situations

Saturday –     When I’m Angry
Hymn: Your Thoughts, Your Words (recording) (printed)

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

A Broader Vision

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you. (Colossians 1:6, NIV)

Christians had gathered from all over the world to spend a week worshiping, talking, and learning together. And I had spent the entire week there in a publisher’s booth selling one particular product: our new hymnal. Every little feature of that product, every detail of the booth, was my life for those days.

Then on the last day, with lighter crowds, I wandered around a bit and saw some of the other exhibits. Right there across the aisle from me was the world missions area. Walking through, I got a glimpse of the desperate needs in so many world areas. I saw display after display of the world’s great cities, and I thought of all the needy millions crammed into each of them.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the details and mechanics of our own little area of ministry. And let’s be honest: at times our concerns revolve too much around how that ministry impacts our own interests. We forget the needs of people, which is the real reason the ministry exists.

With all that in mind, I was approached by a former missionary who was hosting the display. Seeing my name, he commented on a publication I had helped produce years before. He relayed how useful it had been in his work on the mission field.

As he spoke, I thought immediately of new projects I was working on. I realized that God would be able to use them to touch the lives of others, if I stayed focused on Him and on the needs of His people.

I came away with a desire to do a better job right where I am. I don’t need a broader field of service. I need a broader vision of His work here where He has placed me.

Our ministries are only a tiny part of the overall picture, but they matter. We need to stay faithful to Him and focused on Him with each task He places before us. Somewhere that task will make a difference in the lives of people. Somewhere are needs He intends to meet through us today.

God designed our individual spiritual gifts and
roles in the Church to be
small and specialized.
Yet He calls us to
a perspective on the Church that is
broad and all-encompassing,
taking in the entire eternal purpose of God.

Hymn: Beyond All Barriers

Jesus, Living God!

Join the throng that
praised Jesus on that
first Palm Sunday!
Set to a familiar tune.

Recording
Printed Music

Who is He
Robed in light,
Radiant one at the Father’s right?
Hear Him speak.
Life is born,
Gracious gift from our loving Lord.
It is Jesus!
It is Jesus!
He is life and light from the Father’s heart.
Lord Almighty, Holy,
Jesus, Living God!

Who is He,
Truth and grace,
Peasant child in the poorest place?
Selfless love,
Spotless lamb,
Dying King and the Great I Am.
It is Jesus!
It is Jesus!
He is life and light from the Father’s heart.
Lord Almighty, Holy,
Jesus, Living God!

Who is He
Lifted high,
King of Kings at the Father’s right?
Lamb of God
Reigning now!
Lord of Lords! Every knee will bow!
It is Jesus!
It is Jesus!
He is life and light from the Father’s heart.
Lord Almighty, Holy,
Jesus, Living God!

by Ken Bible, © 2006 LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Relationships, Love in the Home

Monday –      God Is Shaping You
Hymn: Beyond Myself (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     As We Live in Christ
Hymn: Live and Love and Grow in Christ (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Daily Needs
Hymn: Our Daily Bread (recording) (printed)

Thursday –  The Dream

Friday –          Parenting
Hymn: Everlasting Father (recording) (printed)

Saturday –     Love One Another
Hymn: Love One Another (recording) (printed)

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

More on Stewardship

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21, NIV)

A steward is one who handles an owner’s property as the owner would want it handled. In a day when slow travel and communication created many absentee business owners, the steward was responsible for making daily decisions as the owner would make them.

As God’s stewards, how are we to manage His resources? What is important to Him? Sure, He wants us to value and respect His ownership too much to waste what He has entrusted to us. But penny-pinching and maximizing profits are not the essence of the stewardship He desires. Remember, He can create anything He wants by simply speaking the word.

What is important to Him? Where does He want His resources focused?

God is love (1 John 4:8). Love is precious to Him. People are precious to Him. Look at the way He spent His one and only Son. He was willing to sacrifice what was most precious to Him for the good of His people.

If we want to please our Owner, we must treat people well. That means everyone: family and strangers, friends and the unfriendly, next-door neighbors and people across the globe. God is love. If we love Him, we will love those He loves. They are all unspeakably dear to Him. He asks us to love them all as much as we love ourselves.

This “golden rule” isn’t some secondary, optional commandment. It is the prime directive. And there is no business exemption. He doesn’t say, “Treat people the way you want to be treated, as long as they treat you fairly” or “as long as it doesn’t cost too much.” Jesus said that loving God and loving other people are the two greatest, most essential commandments in all the world. Everything…everything…hangs on these two commands. (Read Matthew 22:34-40.)

Further, if you want to please your Owner, trust Him. He treasures the simple faith of His children. Trust Him with every need and every concern. Words of trust aren’t good enough. He wants you to prove your trust by the way you use His resources.

In summary, if we want to be a good steward and please the God who trusted you with His resources, use them to love people. That’s how this Owner wants His resources spent. Treat people as He would treat them. And show God that you trust Him by the way you spend what He has lent you. Remember what Jesus said:

“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things [the necessities of life] will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33, NASB)

Great Is Your Faithfulness (Easter)

This hymn broadens the impact of the
familiar and much-loved hymn.
New words to the verses trace
God’s faithfulness through Jesus’
life,
death, and
resurrection.

Recording
Printed Music

Word from the Father, my Savior, my Brother,
You fill our flesh with pure life from above.
What truth and grace, every word, every moment –
Unchanging faithfulness, unfailing love!

Refrain:
Great is Your faithfulness! Great is Your faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Your hand has provided.
Great is Your faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Great is Your faithfulness when, in Your anguish,
You freely pay what compassion demands,
Silently suffering unspeakable sorrow,
Love pouring out from Your head and Your hands.

Great is Your faithfulness when life seems finished,
Hopelessly silent and sealed in the grave.
Then love explodes in full power and glory,
Boundless, triumphant, almighty to save!

by Ken Bible and Thomas O. Chisholm, © 2019 LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Relationships, Love 3

Monday –      The Taste Test
Hymn: The Beauty of Christ (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     Pray for Those You Pass
Hymn: Ever Standing in Your Presence (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Kind to the Unkind
Hymn: As You Love (recording) (printed)

Thursday –  Come to the Source
Hymn: Ever Full and Overflowing (recording) (printed)

Friday –          Let Love Fill My Moments
Hymn: As You Loved Me (recording) (printed)

Saturday –     Flavored with Love
Hymn: God Is Light (recording) (printed)

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com

Stewardship

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. (1 Corinthians 4:1, NASB)

A while back I came across this interesting observation: before the year 1800, no product, no message, no idea could travel faster than a horse. Think about that for a moment. Geographic separation was an impenetrable barrier to quick communication. For we who enjoy instant communication with nearly anyone in the world, such a severe limitation is almost unimaginable. Cell phones, email, internet, jet planes – geographic separation is no longer an insoluble problem. But this has been reality for only a few seconds of our race’s history.

Consider what it was like for business owners in biblical times. Unless the owner lived within daily travel distance of his business – a handful of miles either by foot or by animal — he had to have someone on site to run his business for him. Travel and communication were too slow to allow the owner to have any say in the daily decisions. Absentee owners were common. They had to rely on a manager, a steward, someone they trusted completely to run their business as they wanted it run. The steward made all daily decisions on behalf of the owner. He was to best use the owner’s resources for the owner’s good.

That is the biblical concept of stewardship. God, the source of all that is, has entrusted some small portion of His property to us, His stewards. We are to manage His property as He would manage it.

For that reason, we must know God personally, thoroughly, intimately. How can we manage His property as He would manage it unless we know what is important to Him?

No business owner wants his or her precious resources wasted, and God is no different. But if you think penny-pinching and financial profit are the ultimate in biblical stewardship, you don’t know your Boss. He created all the physical universe with a word, out of nothing. He simply expressed His will, and the universe appeared.

Such a Being never runs short of resources. He has no need for more money. He could create such things with a word. If He needed them, He wouldn’t have to tell us.

So what is important to God? As His stewards, managing His resources as He wants them managed, we need to know. What does God want you to do with your resources?

God never wants material things from us
for their own sake.
He can create those with a word.
When He lends to us and urges us to give of it,
He is teaching us to trust Him and
to share in His generosity.
He is drawing us into His love,
His freedom, and
His abundance.
He is drawing us into Himself.

Hymn: My Life Is Not My Own

The Fullness of God’s Glory

We glimpse God’s magnificence
in creation, but
we see it fully
in Jesus Christ.
Set to a familiar tune.

Recording
Printed Music

The heavens sing a somber hymn
Of greatness dark and deep,
Of endless realms of time and space,
Of mysteries they keep.
But all that is and yet shall be
And all that mind can know
Are only whispers of a God
Far greater than the whole.

Yet all the fullness of this God
And all that He has done
Now shine in all their majesty
In Jesus Christ His Son.
This boundless God is flesh and blood,
And we have seen His face-
The glory of our Living Lord,
The fountain of His grace.

The fullness of our Father God
Resplendent in the Son
Reveals the holy majesty
Of all we will become.
His Spirit glows within our hearts,
A glimpse of what will be:
His glory blazing out through us
For all eternity.

by Ken Bible, © 2006 LNWhymns.com.

ThinkSingPray

ThinkSingPray
about
Relationships, Love 2

Monday –      As I Want to Be Treated
Hymn: Live in Love (recording) (printed)

Tuesday –     Daily Gentleness
Hymn: Be Love in Me (recording) (printed)

Wednesday – Daily Love
Hymn: I Look to You, and You Are Love (recording) (printed)

Thursday –  In Someone Else’s Skin
Hymn: Teach Me How to Love (recording) (printed)

Friday –          Patient with Differences
Hymn: Praise to You, Giver of Life! (recording) (printed)

Saturday –     Through Eyes of Love
Hymn: Our Father’s Burning Heart (recording) (printed)

for more, visit
ThinkSingPray
at KenBible.com