Heard Heartbreaker (Zeppelin) on the radio today. Every time I hear it, when the drums kick in I get an image in my head of a charioteer (Bonham) heavy on the reins, keeping the horses (Page)--who want to run full throttle ahead--at a swift but controlled pace. 1/2
Ten years ago a 12-year-old from Dnipro sat down and played like he’d already lived a few lives behind the kit. Most people only ever saw the clips. This is the full solo. 🥁
The Christian life is summed up by a two-fold outward focus. First, by FAITH, we look away from ourselves to Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. Second, with LOVE, we look away from ourselves to serve our neighbor, out of gratitude for God’s grace to us in Christ, guided by His law.
There is a simple four-word phrase that I have used for decades to describe how we stand with the Lord: God gives, we receive.
Everything we have is gift. Our very existence, the blood in our veins, the breath in our lungs, the homes in which we live, the jobs we hold, whatever money we possess, our spouse, our children, every good thing is from the hand of our heavenly Father.
He has graciously bestowed all of this upon us.
And this means that when we offer something back to God, we are doing nothing more than taking what he has first given to us and handing it back to him. We never originate the gift. We simply return what he has already placed in our hands.
There is no single verse in Scripture that summarizes this more beautifully than David’s prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:14, where he says to God, “All things come from you, and of your own have we given you.”
Of your own have we given to you. It is like a father handing something to his child, and the child wraps it up and gives it back to the father as a gift. That is how it is between us and God. It is all a gift from him.
So God gives, we receive. And when we give back to God, we are giving him only what he has first bestowed upon us.
Thanks be to God for being a good and gracious and giving Father, especially for the greatest gift of all, his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Redeemer.