Recently a friend of ours bought us tickets to hear Handel’s Messiah at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. I have lived near Atlanta all my life, I am familiar with the content and Scriptures of the masterpiece, and I even have an appreciation for such music. But this was the first time I heard the oratorio in person.  As Henry Suso said, “It is one thing to hear for yourself a sweet lute, sweetly played, and quite another thing to merely hear about it.”

Hearing and Hearing About

I suppose the superficiality that fills the church is rooted in the same …

Rebellion, at its core, is the idea that we can do what we want, no matter the consequence or price.  This was the heart issue of Adam and Eve’s fall in the garden.  They had divine instruction not to eat of the tree, yet in the face of that holy standard they chose to feed the flesh.  They bought into the lie of liberty.  The serpent promised freedom in his deceptively-packaged proposal, but what they found was bondage. Their self-empowerment led to self-defeat.  What deadly taste was the fruit of man’s mutiny!

The Misunderstanding of Liberty

“I can do …

What makes a good drama?  What elements and components must be in place to mesmerize and capture the attention of a particular audience?  Well, if you think about it, most dramas have specific items in common:

A good drama has to have an embellished storyline.  Most movies that are “based upon a true story” are just that, “based upon.”  Directors and writers realize that most people want more than the truth, they want a particular interpretation of the truth.  And so, a drama typically has parts and parcels of reality, but is otherwise intertwined with overhyped and exaggerated views …