While searching around YouTube the other day for a song, I ran into a work by John Waller that caught my attention and quickly was added to my wall of favorite songs. 

If you are not one to enjoy this style of music, here are the lyrics to read:

http://www.onlylyrics.com/hits.php?grid=11&id=1013371

The passion in this song, the hunger for more of God stirs my soul.  There are a few songs like this that really help draw me into the presence of God.  Much like the song I wrote about recently, “Sculpture of my heart” by Craig Smith.

Another song is “We Bow Down”.  The person that threw the images together for this one did a great job:

Then I move it along a bit with Paul Wilbur – Days of Elijah:

Back a week or two ago, I was looking for a good performance of one of my top five songs of all time, “How Great Thou Art”.  Digging around YouTube, I found it sung by Newsong.  It is hard to imagine I missed this one for these years.  Their performance is the best one I have every heard for this wonderful song and made me chase down many of the albums and now have a good collection of their music and truly enjoy them.  This song though is their best :)

Another one of their songs I really could feel the passion in is “Rescue”:

The words in this song really show a hunger. 

Music / Worship is a tool by which we prepare our hearts to come into the presence of God, by which we allow the Holy Spirit to invade our entire being.  Remember the passages in the Bible:

Col 3:16 ~ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

Many people quote the first part of the passage “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;”, but most of the time do not include the rest which tells us HOW to be filled with the Spirit:

Eph 5:18-21 ~  And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

If you are a believe, Music of God should be a HUGE part of your walk.  Simply get by yourself, play the music and sing along, from deep within your heart not just singing words, but direct those words to God you would pray to Him.  As the title of this post, He, The Lord God Almighty will send you a Flood with streams of Living Water flowing from deep within you!

I was browsing for something today and found this site and the section on Healing that is pretty good:

http://larryjones.ca/issues/issue5/issue5p1.html

There is a multiple part teaching at the above link on Healing, including how teaching is for every Christian!

There are other topics at the site (just click HOME while you are there) such as:

• Evolution vs Creation
• Jehovah’s Witnesses: Christian or Cult?:
• The Bible: Just Another Book?
• Heaven and Hell
• Two Kingdoms
• Christianity vs Religion
• Heroes of the Faith
• You…. In Perspective
• Jesus Christ: King of Kings and Lord of Lords

He also has another site at:

http://larryjones.ca/john15/home.html

If you happen to be a 'er, there is a touching story that you can watch online which is only 13 minutes long.  It is called "In The Arms of Angels" and is true story from pioneer account of a 8-year old girl and her brother who were almost killed.

Very much worth the time to watch!

Today, I found some more online sites worth checking out.

This is an awesome site for Christian music from other believers.  Many songs provide MP3, sheet music, chord charts and lyrics.  I know I will be spending time on this site!

http://www.sharesong.org

If you have not visited this site before, it has a large number of resources including, graphics, books, testimonies, MIDIs, directories of Internet Christian radio stations and churches, etc..  They have a lot of older (pre-1900) Christian images under clip art.

http://breadsite.org  or  http://thebiblerevival.com

Here is another interesting site.  I found this one looking for Christian clip art, but it has other things too.

http://www.christiansunite.com

Christian Music, art and plays:

http://songsofpraise.org

Here is another site that I ran into looking for Clip Art.  It provides several different resources for free:

http://www.watton.org

This is a site I ran into looking for Christian clip art / photos.  It has a number of photos that you can use for free.  They do not have a large number of them, but some do look useful!

http://www.copyrightfreephotos.com

It has been a busy morning :)

Today, in worship, I ran across a song I had not heard for a while.  While I have heard the song before (as it is in my library from a CD I bought many years ago called "20 Contemporary Songs Of Worship Volume 2"), it was only today did I really allow the words to move beyond my mind and into my heart.  I wanted the lyrics so I did a quick search and finally found them along with some further quotes by the artist, Craig Smith.

Here are a few other offerings from Craig Smith that I have been able to find:

http://www.kardiamedia.com/shop/?shop=1&cat=2&cart=32437

Craig Smith has been Pastoring City Christian Fellowship in Fort Smith AR.  Here is the church's site. 

http://www.citychristianfellowship.org/?q=node/33

You might give ear to some of the audio sermons such as "Living Like Jesus".

http://www.citychristianfellowship.org/?q=audio/sermons

The song I enjoyed so much today is "Sculptor of My Heart".  This should be the cry of our heart!!!

Here are the lyrics and the quote from the author:

Craig Smith
Psalm 25:4

Search with holy eyes
This vessel in Your hands
Sift and purify
By the standards You demand
Sculptor of my heart

Cast and forge my mind
With a quest for purity
And as the poet weaves his line
Compose You melody

Chorus

Please make of me
Your Kingdom's art
May You be pleased
Sculptor of my heart

You have fashioned perfectly
Your image in the Son
Shape and pattern within me
To be the paragon
Sculptor of my heart
Hew away those places
Which cause blemish to the whole
As the only skillful Master
Engrave Your name upon my soul

Chorus

You create from a heart of stone
A vessel of honor that You call
Your own, Your own

Chorus

Quote from Author:

The desire of the Father is that we be conformed to the image of His Son. May we have the boldness and wisdom to come before the Lord and prayfully request He mold us into that which is pleasing and productive to His Kingdom, at whatever the cost to us personally.

There are at least two qualities found in a master-craftsman in relation to his work. One is the constant striving for perfection in his art. Patiently exerting all his abilities to create a beautiful, expressive, and seemingly flawless place. Secondly, being able to apply his entire imagination to
visualizing the completed art form, even prior to picking up his first sculpting tool.

After mentally fixing what the completed form will look like, he then begins to hammer and chisel away those unsightly chunks and pieces which would distort the final image. He will labor diligently until that which was once only a mental image cast upon formless material, has been transformed into a timeless work of art.

Through the laborious and skillful process of the artist, material which once had little worth is converted into an object of great value. In similar manner, we come to Christ as objects of little value, and certainly no value when considered in relation to the Kingdom of God. As we are convicted of our sin, ask forgiveness and repent of our sin, He becomes our Saviour and His Lordship then moves into every aspect of our life. As we stand before Him, in His grace, as mere babes in Christ, He not only sees our present immature state, but He also supernaturally sees the finished
products.

Because of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, we have moved from a position of worthlessness to God, to a secured position of great potential and eternal value to God. He takes "...from a heart of stone," and through the work of the Holy Spirit makes "a vessel of honor."

The gift of salvation is made available to each of us only to the extent that we each are willing to respond in obedience to His invitation. Upon accepting His terms to that free gift, we then become a child of the King. This is the foundation we are established on, and can reason from God's Word, that we should continue to build on. It is the process of tearing down the fleshly man, and building up the spiritual man "...put on the new self (man) who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him." (Col. 3:10) The Lord did not intend for us to remain as "babes," in fact we are instructed to "long for the pure milk of the Word, that by it (we) may grow in respect to salvation." (I Peter 2:2) "...grow (increase) in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." (II Peter 3:18) It should be our desire, goal, and prayer that the Father
would remove, hammer and chisel, away any material which does not conform to the image of His Son.

He reveals those thing in our live which are unpleasing in His sight, and we respond in obedience so they do not hinder the final result.

We submit to Him because He has loved us enough to give us life through His Son. We were created to bring glory to God, to be pleasing in His sight. That is our destiny. We are the clay in the potter's hand. We are material being constructed into living objects which are pleasing and bring
satisfaction to the Father. God is not just wise, He is the source of true "Wisdom." As vessels, then, let us not worry but have complete trust in Him and His wisdom that He will chip away only those unnecessary and unsightly pieces.

As we are in submission and obedience to Him, the end result will be a living work of art, worthy of the King's chambers.--Craig Smith

We Praise Thee, O God, Our Redeemer
Craig Smith

We praise Thee, O God our Redeemer, Creator
In grateful devotion our tribute we bring
We lay it before Thee
We kneel and adore Thee
We bless Thy Holy Name, glad praises we sing

This is a cool video on YouTube where some people use their hands and a florescent light to animate the song "Who Am I", but Casting Crowns.  At the end of the video you will see a glimpse of the number of people involved.  Job well done!

Need another place to find Christian videos?  During my surfing today, I stumbled on a site called JesusClips.com.  Here was a video I watched called "Reason to Live":

http://www.jesusclips.com/view_video.php?viewkey=90ce0268229151c9bde1

Today, I was browsing around looking for Scriptures on physical healing and ran into:

http://www.HowToHeal.org

The site is by a wonderful man named Hal Weeks all about sharing the healing power of God along with encouraging Christians to get about "doing the work" and not living a complacent life.

In his "Personal Insights" page, I found these that jumped out at me:

• Because our understanding is finite, sooner or later, we must put our trust in God.
• There are no unemployed in God's Kingdom, but there are many who do not report for work but still want all the benefits.
• God is the ultimate Teacher but it may take adversity to get us to enroll.
• God makes allowances for misunderstand Him, but not for disobedience.
• We don't need others to confirm our beliefs, but we do need others to provoke us to examine them.
• God is the original Promise keeper.
• Jesus sent the church the gifts of the Holy Spirit but most Christians are not interested enough to open the package.
• Spiritual growth is an uphill hike.  It has rest stops, but no camping grounds.
• As Disciples we are all feel called to bring about spiritual growth but we must be prepared to be patient with the stick-in-the-muds.
• The dollar bill will never go out of use as long as there are collection plates.
• The rapture will be a fork in the road. Those that are right and those that are left.
• If a church building is too small, preach on repentance.
• A skeptics mind is read only storage.

And one last one

• It has been said that the greatest indictment of a church is not that it is falling short of the mark but that is not striving for the mark.  And some ask, "what mark?"

Also on the site, you will find a link to:

http://www.HealingRooms.com

Which seems to be a large array of resources (I have not had time to look at them much yet), but the first one to check out might be the "local Sites" option on the menu.  There is has a list of Healing Rooms in your area or nearby.

Over the years, I have seen quite a number of Christian films.  Most of them sadly are repeats of others and often poorly done usually due to low budgets and/or bad actors.

Well, we watched a movie last night that instantly soared to my top five list:  Facing the Giant!  It is a wonderful movie with a nice blend of Christianity and real life.  While the story appears to be about a football team, they real message is an example of Christian life and a theme of "With God ALL things are possible".

This movie was made on a budget of $100,000 and an all volunteer cast of Christians.  What a movie!

Find out more at:

http://www.facingthegiants.com/dvdabout_bts.php

and

http://www.facingthegiants.com/dvdabout_cast.php

Flywheel is another good Christian film, which is made by the same people.  It is a good story about a used car dealer and how honesty hurt his business. 

Both of these moves are good witnessing tool and should be in every church library!

BTW, for those Netflix'ers out there, both are available at Netflix