Yeah, I know I posted this song back in March but, this is as performed by the band who God inspired with the song. They passed it along to Chris Tomlin. For the background of how the song came to be, click on the second link and TAKE HEART!
Bluetree: God Of This City - Belfast Version
Chris Tomlin talks about "God of This City"
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God inspired the song? How do we (or they for that matter) know God inspired it? Because they like it? Because it feels like a worship song? How do we know that God likes that song?
I always cringe when people say things like that because it is so presumptuous to claim that any of us can possibly know the will or thoughts of God.
Pat Robertson often says he knows the will of God. Does he? He thinks that God blesses him and his ministry so is that a defacto blessing? Lots of big buisness make a lot of money but they do so unethically. I really disagree with the popular prosperity ministries going on because it assumes a defacto blessing by God just because you make money and you attend church and pray.
I think it is all so dangerous. Not that believing a church song is dangerous. But you know what I mean.
This is really off topic from your point, but I am often intrigued by the idea of "God's blessing" or "God-inspired".
What's your take on all of this?
My take on the inspiration of God is that I have been personally inspired by God, can't prove it, don't even want to try.
I can only speak in spiritual terms about my own faith and for myself. I can speak for no other. Perhaps I wasn't choosy enough in my lead in, perhaps I should have used terminology like, "allegedly inspired?"
Again, I can't speak for anyone else.
Have you never felt inspired by God, Jack? I hope you have, and I'd hope you'd admit it if you had.
Kiss, kiss.
I feel "inspired" to add something to the previous answer.
What is inspiration?
I get inspired by all kinds of things on a daily basis. Sometimes it's a song like "God of this City," sometimes it is a book or poem I have read, sometimes it is the soil I displace with my hands when gardening. If songs, books, poetry, and even dirt can inspire me, how sad it would be, as a Christian, to think that all these petty and small things could inspire me and the God of the Universe could not!? :o
I used to have three favorite bloggers, now I just have two:
fat jack and jackehammer.
I like reading both of your blogs.
thank you for the interesting conversations.
So Busplunge, should go jump off the face of the Earth?
I like reading your blog too, Bus.
And Des, I think I heard your mother calling you....from Lebnun.
:)
I don't really want you or anyone else to feel any sort of requirement to prove their inspiration from God. It would be futile to try. Blessings are good regardless where they come from. That's not my point.
I guess I am merely pointing out that all kinds of Christians use the "God-inspired" idea to say, do, think and act in all sorts of ways and it bothers me. The prosperity gospel bothers me. Pat Robertson claims to know and speak for God and yet he says and thinks terrible and non-Biblical things (assassination of foreign presidents, God sent hurricanes because of gays, etc).
Sometimes what we want to think is God-inspired is merely our own inclinations manifested and cloaked in a curtain of God.
Chris Brewer has been talking about speaking in tongues lately and I thought about this then. The folks who do that insist that it is God-inspired. Yet, it doesn't happen to plenty of devout, God-fearing, praying Catholics, Baptists, Church of Christ, Methodists, etc. Why don't they speak in tongues? God-inspired? Really? I think not.
Brewer went on to talk about how when he brings this up with Christians many instantly insinuate that he really does not know God, hasn't tried hard enough, isn't devout enough, or some other nonsense.
They questions one's Christianity and assume that one isn't really blessed or inspired for God. Poor, pitiful thing. They do it with judgement.
Just because he asks the question.
I ask the question, too. What if what we think is God-inspired really isn't God at all but merely our attempt to make ourselves feel better?
Does that mean that God does not exist or does not care? I say no, but that idea is probably scary to a whole host of folks.
To answer your question ...
(which I DO NOT think was asked out of judgement, by the way. You and I like one another and are free to ask open and honest questions. I took your question to me as respectful inquiry.)
Yes, I have felt what I thought at the time was God's inspiration, closeness, or presence. At the time I attributed it to God.
The truth is, I really don't know that it was God. It doesn't change the fact that the event occurred. It just means that I leave open the possibility that God might have been involved and God might have just let life happen. I don't "know" it was God.
I don't use my faith in the Lord as a way to know his will or his desire. I am not so presumptuous as to make a decision and then attribute it to God's will.
(This has nothing to do with the decisions that two local bloggers have made recently. I am thinking in much larger terms than them. I hope they don't take offense if they read this. It's not meant for specifically for them. Quitting things to give more time to God is a wonderful thing.)
Hi Jack (good thing we ain't on a plane, huh?),
This is a good, healthy discussion, as you agree.
I'm happy you feel comfortable with getting involved in a discussion with me, and I think you raise good points and think your questions and concerns have a legitimate foundation.
I don't disagree with you really, on much of anything you wrote but wanted to reply to you, just to let you know I'm paying attention.
I like your idea that you leave open the possiblity that God inspires you and that God inspires others. It IS the big question for many Christians about discerning God's will properly and correctly. I'm certainly not a master of it, by any means. I'm sort of like you, in that regard, I leave open the possiblity that God inspires me, I even totally believe He does but, like you, "I don't "know" it was God."
I've seen others, completely convinced that some big move was God's will, only to fall on their face later and realize it was what they WANTED to be God's will. Does God allow those who ARE doing His will to fail? Well, that's another question, and I'd have to say I think that might be possible because, we could start out a project completely in God's will but, later, fall out of God's will and lose His blessing on the project, couldn't we?
Those kind of issues are why I don't believe it is my place to judge anyone else at any given moment. There have been times that, though a Christian, and as a Baptist believing in the theology that once you are saved you are always saved, that, frankly, I haven't "walked the walk." If other Christians had judged me at those times, they would have sworn I "bear no fruit" and couldn't possibly have legitimately experienced salvation. You know? But, I did experience salvation so, what do they know?
Our relationships with Christ (God) are so very personal. I believe He grows us in a million, tiny ways every day, in ways even imperceptible to us, let alone others. How can I know how He is working in your heart, even as you might be in the act of committing a horrendous sin? It just isn't my place.
I also don't believe it is my place to judge Pat Robertson...God can deal with his heart, just as He deals with mine.
I just think, in my own mind, the important thing is that we TRY to view others with the same eyes God might be viewing them. God sees us differently than we even see ourselves. We can thank Him that He does because, I believe, we can't earn His love by anything we do...it is completely by His mercy and grace we are able to be reconciled to right relationship with God. Anyway, that is what I am taught in the Baptist church and it is very Biblically consistant, if it wasn't I probably wouldn't be a Baptist, I'd be something else.
We are all individuals. We need to learn to treat each other as individuals. Some individuals I like better than others and have more in common with than others. It's okay to disagree, and, I think, it's even okay to judge, really, I don't think God tells us, unequivocally (sp?) not to judge but, He does warn us, if you judge others, expect to be judged yourself. I, personally, find myself less and less inclined to judge others as I age.
Thanks for the interesting conversation.
Just as an aside: I believe speaking in tongues exists because the Bible still, even today, supports that however, the practice of speaking in tongues has clear Biblical guidelines. Tongues have to be translated in order to have value. I once attended a church where there was speaking in tongues going on, and one of the most beautiful things I ever heard was translated by one person from something spoken in tongues by another. Was it God? It certainly seemed to come from a loftier plane than the one I occupy. But, I don't know, I'll allow God to be the judge of that, myself. In that church, where that happened, they followed the Biblical guidelines and what I heard was very "inspiring." (Ah, there's that word again! Hah!)
Through discussion we find we agree much more than we realized. Isn't that inspiring? (I had to find a way to throw that word in too.)
Enjoy your Sunday.
I listened to the song by the band whom God inspired.
Poor, poor deluded dears.
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