By: Jim Umlauf
I hesitate to cite Amy Winehouse because there are some explicit lyrics in her songs that most readers of a church blog would certainly not approve of. What grants a little license, I think, is the obvious irony of her best known song, “Rehab.”
What happened to her is a lesson to us. Independent wealth meant she had no financial concerns. Rock star status meant no moral boundaries. Everyone she kept close to her in life said, “yes.” In essence, she got anything she wanted whenever she wanted it, and that’s a recipe for disaster. It really got me thinking: Are we, as fallen image bearers of our Creator, trying, due to sin, to ultimately destroy ourselves? When one overeats, it’s not mounds of carrots and baby spinach. It’s stuff that’s particularly bad for the human body in bulk.
As Christians, we have spiritual life where there was none before. We are a new creation, with a new hope and a new eternal home. We have the righteousness of Christ imputed to our account. In other words, when God looks at our moral “bank account,” he sees ZERO PERCENT of our sin and mangled attempts at morality, and ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the righteousness of his Son. Those realities eternally safe in the living Christ, there’s still a part of us on this side of heaven that grapples with sin. So how are we to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? How are we to walk in the light as he is in the light? How are we to run the race, keep in step with the Holy Spirit, seek first the Kingdom of God, and renew our minds?
The place to go is where God reveals himself—in his word. The same Holy Spirit who penned it is the same Holy Spirit who breathes life, summons souls, and illumines truth.
Will you join me over the next week to commit to memory my favorite Scripture song, Philippians 4.8? It's number three on the CD, and can also be played below. We’ll sing it together a week from Sunday. Here’s the verse itself:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, thing about these things.
