Category: Other

To sit down and write about oneself and personal motivation is a very hard task. Where must I begin?

If you are reading this, it may be that you are just curious. Maybe you are trying to tell others about who I am but actually need help to describe “the what I am”

I really have the feeling that the “what I am” is probably more accurate and will probably help you, the reader…Music should be more about the message and less about the singer.

So, describing me is simple, I am a man who loves God, feels Gods hand in my life and who attempts to walk by faith and not by sight.  My calling is to do church music and have done so for over 50 years.

I am, like so many other people, who are not sure what the future holds but I am willing to seize the day with help from above.   I was born in 1950 to parents who had never been parents before and into a world that would change before our very eyes into something that was incomprehensible.

At 5 years old I would have a life changing encounter with God himself, who would not only become my Savior but thru that encounter; become my guide to the rest of my life, good and bad.

I was raised as a preacher’s kid and most time life was tough. Watching others from behind the so-called pulpit was a very enlightening experience. Seeing Christians struggle, fail, give up, go away, stand there and take it and die in their shoes has been a large part of my experience.

In 1979 and was licensed as a Southern Baptist evangelist and that calling cost me everything and yet gave me everything I have now. I have never felt the call to preach but to sing, so that is what I do; sing…and I let the singing do the preaching.  In ministry its important to let God do the saving.

I have never felt that I was a good singer but I have felt that if I just did as God equipped me, He would take care of what I lacked… Thru music I can tell people stories how they should put their trust in Jesus. The music makes it easy to brush them in that direction. I view myself as a seed planter using music.

My point is that I don’t want people pointed to me but to the One who has sent me to tell others about Him. Its my desire for God to take what little I have and use it for Himself.  This may sound funny but even in my sin I’ve wanted Him to use it to point the way to go or not… I have walked thru this world, sometimes muddy outside, but clean inside because of what He has done for me.

I feel like there are others who feel the same way about ministry and so being an encouragement is important to me. Being famous in not a goal, however being known is important to doing what God has called me to do. So here is my words to you. I am not trained, I have no degrees, I am not anyone who is important but someone who loves the Lord and walks in and by faith.

I am older now; I know less than I have ever learned. I do know that God wants to get your attention and He cares for you. If you will just put your trust in Him, He will see you thru whatever may be happening.

There is a red thread that comes from creation. It winds its way thru the eons of time. Touching and weaving as it goes. You, my friend are part of its story…  sing with me, I love to tell the story, of Jesus and his love, twill be my theme in Glory, to tell the old, old, story, Of Jesus and his love.

Music is in this…

In 1863 William P Mackay wrote this song. Later John J Husband put it to music.

The song came from Psalms 85.6 “Wilt Thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee?”

This is not the first time those words, like this, were used to set in motion a movement in people.  About 500 years ago Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation by nailing 95 theses to the church doors in Wittenberg Germany. Setting off the revival of all time in church history.

Guess he felt like he was writing the words of God on the heart of the church doors. God is love! Jesus died for the world but more that, He died for you!

So, there is a lot to the words of this song, more power that is still available to overcome what we face today. 

To be set free to say… We praise thee oh God, for the spirit of Light, who has shown us our Savior and has scattered our night!

You see being saved by grace plus nothing, minus nothing is the way my friend. John 3:16

Listen to Revive Us Again

In the book of Exodus, a custom was talked about when a slave had worked his time and was being set free. His master would give him land, possessions, he could take his family and his children: then go his merry way.

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But,

If he loved his master, then things were different, a celebration was planned and in front of the whole town, he was taken to the doorpost of the house and his master would take an awl and pierce his ear as an outward sign that the man was a freed slave and that he loved his master and wanted to stay.

Today how we do things is different, but devotion is the same. God loved me so he sent his son to set me free from my enslavement and the slavery of sin.

God has forgiven me of all of my sin debt and I’ve been set free. so, it’s my desire to sing this old song about dedicating my life to stay with him and never stray from his love. Instead of my ear I want him to pierce my heart as an outward sign for all to see that I love him, he set me free, I could do something else but I want to stay forever with him.

How about you, want to come?

About “Pierce My Ear”

1 Thessalonians 4:16 King James Version (KJV)

 For the Lord, himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

At age 26, Clifford Sechrest in 1956 was supposed to preach his first sermon. The day before was a long one. He had been up all night long searching and asking God what I preach on.

He told the story many times how he lost five pounds during the night pouring over the scriptures and praying that God would give him something to say… It was his first sermon. It was homecoming at Springfield Road Baptist Church.  Lemmy Mabe was the pastor and had invited him to speak.

The church was full.  The choir was singing.  He was next to speak. The choir finished, he was up next. My dad looked at the congregation and to the music leader and asked can you play the song one more time? He had no sermon; He was lost as to what to do. God had given him nothing to preach on.

The choir started the song again, The words, You have heard of little Moses in the bulrush….you have heard of David and his sling, then all of a sudden the piano player screamed filled with the Spirit and threw her pocketbook in the air, to the surprise of everyone there, God had shown up in the service.

The crowd stood to their feet and one by one they started to shout and to testify in the old-time way…..

Clifford never got a chance to preach his first sermon that morning… 

Time has gone on since that day, but this song is dedicated to them, for most of them now, are in that meeting they sang about that day…soon we will all be there.   Come go and fly with us… 

Listen to A Meeting In The Air

Someone once said that “ we are in this together” … To take this to a more personal level we are all in the same storm just in different boats…We are all the same but all originals… Maybe God sees us as a point of light like Him. We are supposed to be a reflection of our father… and after all the Bible says we are all made in His image, whatever that is. I think He has words to relate to His creations in all their different stages and walks of life. The message is clear however about His love for us regardless of where we find ourselves. He has a gift for us and all we have to do is receive it.

I first heard this song, Little Pilgrim in the early seventies. The Vietnam War was real, hippies were getting saved and being baptized in the Pacific Ocean by the thousands, coffee houses were real, The Jesus movement was full blast. Billy Graham was packing stadiums everywhere around the world. 

The church was struggling with words about how to accept people who were different and had all kinds of baggage that were just not what they were used to, just like it is today. 

Chuck Girard wrote this song and this song gave a way to express thru music, words to people who were different. Way different, than any other time. People who did not fit what church people thought was appropriate. It birthed a new kind of music for the times.  It was said he was the father of the contemporary music we have today. 

Good or bad

I know many of us have had people in our lives or we may know that are Christians who fail. Who seems like they cannot pull out of the power-dive they are in regardless of what they do.  People who for some reason or other can’t get it together. They try and then fail miserably only to have to start over. People who fail and fracture their lives so bad they appear to lose their way.

This song was written in a day when there were a lot of voices in the 70ties that were telling others about the way. and it seems more like that even more today. Even a very loud voice that says there is no voice and there is no way.

So., If you don’t know anybody whose life has been wrecked by wrong choices. then you can just start with me. I have had terrible things in my life and wonderful things as well. Several years ago, my ex-wife died as a victim of domestic violence and her husband committed suicide afterward. She was a Christian and I have had a hard time with all of that and so feel like I wanted to do this song work in their honor and to maybe help others who are hurting and struggling today thru that kind of torment as well.  

This song will not fix it for you or alter how you think. what it does say is that God loves you and wants you to know in your struggles He will be Faithful regardless of what you may do or have done. Just go to him, believe in Him. trust in Him. He is all you need. He made you a reflection of Him and there is nothing you can do to make Him love you more.

I contacted Chuck and he has graciously given me permission to perform his song for free in hopes others will find the way home.  Lots of things happen in our journey on this side of life but rest assured that once “We are resting in the arms of the only one that can save us” all will be restored forevermore. God is not surprised at anything and He is already in tomorrow.

His love goes beyond the highest star and the deepest sea.

It’s all about God’s grace and imputed righteousness. We all have failed and come short.   

It’s the greatest love story ever told. Little Pilgrim, why don’t “you give your heart and your soul and your body and your mind and your life to the Lord?”

What I want you to get from this post and music is that you don’t need answers, you just need Jesus… He is the answer…You can be part of that story today….” seek Him while He may be found”

Listen to Little Pilgrim

I can hear my mother say, You behave yourself, and you know God’s watching you!”

I don’t know how many times I’ve sung this song and never got its message till now… Not only is watching over me but oh how much more does he care for me… He cares for me so that he made me an heir to his kingdom. He sent his son to die for me.  What a strange way he made to save the world. 

 Jesus loved me so; for the Bible tells me so rings in my head…I should not worry nor complain because He has gone before me to make the way for me. 

Today things are so confusing, so every which away. It’s hard for anyone to make sense of what is going on.  

Clifford, my dad always said, don’t take this world too seriously, and if God doesn’t help you son you’re sunk.

So, Sing if you have music in you… and remember How much more does he care for you.

 You are not alone. He is watching and loving you where you are, even if you are not aware that He is looking and watching.

Listen to His Eye Is On The Sparrow

A song that came from Depression

The Story Behind In the Sweet By and By As told by the Website Godtube

Sanford Fillmore Bennett was born in New York, 21 June 1836.  In 1864 enrolled in the Wisconsin Volunteers and served as Second Lieutenant. Following the war, he returned to Elkhorn and started a drug store and began the study of medicine. He graduated from Rush Medical College in 1874.

Bennett described the composition of the hymn in his autobiography.

Mr. Webster, like many musicians, was of an exceedingly nervous and sensitive nature, and subject to periods of depression, in which he looked upon the dark side of all things in life. I had learned his peculiarities so well that on meeting him I could tell at a glance if he was melancholy, and had found that I could rouse him up by giving him a new song to work on.

He came into my place of business [in Elkhorn, Wisconsin], walked down to the stove, and turned his back on me without speaking. I was at my desk. Turning to him, I said, “Webster, what is the matter now?” “It’s no matter,” he replied, “it will be all right by and by.” The idea of the hymn came me like a flash of sunlight, and I replied, “The Sweet By and By! Why would not that make a good hymn?” “Maybe it would,” he said indifferently. Turning to my desk I penned the words of the hymn as fast as I could write. I handed the words to Webster. As he read his eyes kindled, and stepping to the desk he began writing the notes. Taking his violin, he played the melody and then jotted down the notes of the chorus. It was not over thirty minutes from the time I took my pen to write the words before two friends with Webster and myself were singing the hymn.—Sanford Fillmore Bennett (1836-1898)

There are a lot of songs that a person can play and sing. Each song may have a different message to convey.  To sing a song about heaven is to sing about hope. Hope now and of things to come.

Hope was described to me once as this…” Hope is the sound of the bird who is singing in the dark of night, as it hears the sound of the sun coming up.”

My dad who was the “preacher”, said to me at the end of his life after preaching for over 50 years. ” Son, I hope I got this right” … It bothered me for a long time that he said that.  It took me years later to unpack that conversation.

You see I have figured out what he meant.

Hope is the product of faith. To have hope we must have doubt.  God sent his Son that we may have hope in the face of doubt.

So, let us sing as that bird sings in the dark as we hear the Son coming for us. We sing to The Ageless One, The Lamb of God! The Bright and Morning Star!

Sing me a song about Heaven, sing me a song about His Love.

Listen to Heaven Medley