Faithful - Music for August 21

I told myself that I was going to start posting consistently on my worship blog. Hmmm. Maybe that will start this week. Maybe.....

I love the text of tomorrow's choir anthem, "Faithful." It was written by Chris Tomlin, Christy Nockels, Ed Cash and Nathan Nockels. https://christynockels.com/

Verse 1
Faithful forever You are faithful
Father to the fatherless
You uphold the one who feels forsaken
You are faithful God

Psalm 10:14 NIV

But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand. The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.

Psalm 68:5 NIV

A father to thefatherlessa defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.

Go to http://www.crosswalk.com/ and do a search for "fatherless" and you'll find a lot of scripture that instructs us to defend the fatherless and widows. Here.... I'll do it for you - click here

fatherless

Here's what James has to say about the fatherless

James 1:27 NIV

 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Here's a quick little sermonette for you. 

For us to be like Christ we need to care about the things that He cares about. A fantastic way to care for, defend and to be a father to the fatherless is through adoption and foster care. 

If I had started this post before late on a Saturday I would give you a lot more information about adoption and foster care. I'll try to get my sweet daughter, who is adoptive mother of three and foster mother to one, to write a post for me. Or I'll ask her for some links to her blog posts to add to this post.

I can tell you from a Papa's point of view, adoption and foster care is AWESOME.

Other songs for tomorrow include

To God Be the Glory

Majesty

Prince of Peace

I Will Rise

What Adoption Has Taught Me About God

Well... maybe not taught me new things, but helped me see again some wonderful truths about our heavenly Father. While visiting my newest grandson in the hospital, I realized that the emotions I was feeling and the thoughts I was having are what God sees when he looks at us. We are his adopted sons and daughters when we know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Here are just some random thoughts about adoption from an earthly grandfather thinking about his new adopted grandson. Notice what they tell you about God and His adoption of us.

• I totally love my adopted grandchildren as much as my non-adopted grandchildren.
• I love this tiny baby boy and he doesn't even know who I am.
• His heart is all messed up but I love him anyway.
• I love him because he was chosen and loved by my daughter, not because he can do something for me.
• I'm all worried about him and want the best for him even though he doesn't even know what he may need.
• I talk to him when I am with him so he will know my voice when he's able to see me. (He's in a drug induced sleep right now while his heart mends.)
• I took up an offense for him and my other adopted grandchildren when I heard that a stupid preacher said you shouldn't adopt children because you don't know what problems they may have (Pat Robertson - earlier this month Read about it here) 

I suppose the list could go on and on. (Add to it your own thoughts. Or better yet, post them here as a comment.) I think you see what I am saying here. All the things I give to my children and grandchildren are for ALL of them - adopted or not.

I love it when at the adoption proceedings the judge says something like "all the rights and responsibilities of the family, including inheritance are granted as if the child was a natural-born child." And they say something like "and these can't be taken away".... I guess I should have called Christy to double check how this is all worded. Oh, and this makes a great case for the "Baptist" doctrine of "once saved always saved." But that's another post.

I'll close this post with this beautiful verse from Ephesians. (notice the phrase "kind intention" - wow!)

Ephesians 1:5 NAS

He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

Adoption Day

In choir last night I mentioned that Adoption Day was coming up on October 2. We're very excited to officially add Benjamin to the family. You can see a little more about him - OK, probably a lot more if you spend some time - on my other blog http://www.papalyndel.blogspot.com/
Here's a picture of Benjamin playing a piano keyboard. You can tell music runs in the family.

Here's a cool verse for you to consider. -Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.