I Stand Firm – Music Story

Paul pictures the Christian life as a battle. A battle against doubt, fear, deception, darkness. Paul instructs us to “Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

Doubt and Fear vs. Pursuit of Holiness

When we experience pain, problems, and stress, we are tempted to pursue happiness. The battle we face is internal, a battle against doubt and fear. When life doesn’t go as we wish, Paul instructs us use the Word of God as a sword. We are to let God’s Word pierce us and transform our pursuit, from happiness to holiness.

Deception vs. Liberty

We live in a post-truth culture, a culture in which feelings trump facts. Jesus, not how we feel, is truth. His teachings are under attack. This battle is external, a battle against deceptive cultural norms, claims based on feelings. This battle is fought in the public arena for the right of Jesus followers to express truth. And after doing everything we can, Paul instructs us to stand our ground.

Darkness vs. Life

Jesus is the light. Darkness seeks to extinguish the light. Darkness rules where Jesus and his teachings are banned. When the day of evil comes, followers of Jesus may experience loss of property or livelihood, imprisonment, torture, even death. In the day of evil Paul instructs us to put on the full armor of God and stand firm.

From the album “Main Street” this video is scrolling playback of a song based on Ephesians 6:10-18.

Kathy

Click here to read Ephesians 6.

Print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML) sheet music is available for I Stand Firm.

Click here for PDF.

Click here for MusicXML.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML files.) 

The Trinity

Historic Christianity teaches that the Creator God of the Bible is Triune. The Creator is three Who’s and one What. The three Who’s are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The one What is God. There is only one God. A recent survey revealed that many evangelical Christians are out of step with historic Christianity. 30% say Jesus is not God!

When I was in high school my neighborhood was homogeneous. A friend told me that I worshipped three Gods, not one. Her church taught that the Trinity is nonsense. I did not know how to respond. 

Times have changed. Today my neighborhood is diverse. Recently a group of us were discussing Jesus. The Muslim in our group said that Christians worship three Gods, not one. He worshipped one God, Allah. We were snacking on potato chips. He picked up three empty chip bags and said these three bags are not one. Three cannot be one. The Trinity is not logical. 

How would you respond? You might say that the Trinity is a mystery; it cannot be explained, yet it is true. But that would not address his misinformed potato chip bag analogy. It would not expose his straw man argument. It would not satisfy his thirst to know his Creator. 

Here is the presentation I gave last month on the Trinity. At the end I share how I responded.

Kathy

Click here for the results of the State of American Theology Study.

Print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML) sheet music is available for No God But One, a song featured in the presentation.

Click here for PDF.

Click here for MusicXML.

(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML files.) 

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence – Music Story

“Imagine that you are watching – astonished! – as God, accompanied by thousands of angels, descends from heaven to earth be born of Mary. Picture that descent as you sing these words.”

The choir director was asking us to focus on the lyrics of the sheet music he had passed out. I was a student nurse at Abbott Hospital School of Nursing and privileged to be part of an area wide student nurse choir. We would be performing Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence at a Christmas concert downtown Minneapolis. We had in our hands an ancient Greek hymn translated into English and set to a French melody.

Sixteen hundred years ago the hymn was chanted during communion when the bread and wine were presented. The words focus the attention to the awe and mystery of God’s presence in the Eucharist. We were to sing the words as an act of worship, in awe and wonder that God with us once lay in a manger.

I can’t remember what else was sung at the concert. But I will never forget singing this song, our voices reverberating through St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral, seemingly in concert with the angelic host as they announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds. For me this communion chant will always be a Christmas hymn, depicting the amazing wonder of God being born as a man.

From the album “The HymnBook – Thirty-Four Hundred Years of Praise!” this video is scrolling playback of the song.

Kathy

Click here and here to read the history of the hymn.

You can get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence (arranged for brass and bells).

Click here for print sheet music.

Click here for digital sheet music.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music. Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)

No God but One – Music Story

When I was five years old, I fell in love with the Creator. I fell in love with Jesus. I knew he loved me for the Bible told me so. It said that God loved me so much he sent Jesus to die for my sins. And because Jesus rose from the dead, I can live eternally. I asked Jesus to forgive me and be my Savior.

But that belief was challenged in high school. A friend told me it was not the Creator who died on the cross. One God couldn’t be the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That was logically impossible. She also questioned my belief in the resurrection. I wanted to be a nurse and that meant taking science classes. My science textbooks told me that we were on the verge of discovering the pathway from molecules to man. We no longer needed a Creator to explain the universe.

I had lots of questions and wanted answers.

For thousands of years people believed the universe is eternal and unchanging. But the first verse in the Bible says the universe was created, it had a beginning. And other Old Testament verses tell us that the universe is expanding, it is being stretched out. The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the discovery that the universe, that is, space, energy, matter, and even time, had a beginning and has been continually expanding from that beginning, forming galaxies, stars, and planets. A beginning requires a Beginner, one who transcends space and time!

Not only that, I learned that triune things are common. Pre-med students learn about resonance theory in organic chemistry, a class not required for nursing students. Some molecules have more than one structure or resonance. Nitrate has three resonances. Nitrate is all three structures all the time, never just one of them. That’s exactly how Christians describe the Triune God! God is all three persons all the time, never just one of them.

As a nurse, I know that crucifixion is lethal. Jesus did die. Historians and critical New Testament scholars tell us that the primitive church recited creeds about Jesus years before any of the New Testament documents were written. Unbelieving scholars tell us that one of those creeds contains a list of people who saw Jesus alive after he died. That list can be dated to within three years or even months of Jesus crucifixion.

A Triune Creator with the power to create space, matter, energy, and time from nothing and stretch it out to the size it is today would have the power to enter his creation as a man, die for sinners, for me! and rise from the dead.

I fell in love with the Creator. I fell in love with Jesus. I know he loves me because the Bible tells me so. I know this is so because evidence from science and history confirm the Bible’s claims.

From the album “Main Street” this video is scrolling playback of the song.

Kathy

Click here to read what I learned about the Creed and here to read about the NASA satellite discovery that’s ‘like looking at God’.

You can get print (PDF) and/or digital (MusicXML™) sheet music for No God But One.

Click here for print sheet music for horn and organ. 

Click here for digital sheet music for horn and organ.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music.
Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)

Light of the World - Music Story

At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of the King! In the middle ages the arrival of a king was announced by fanfare trumpets. As part of our Christmas celebration we hang a fanfare trumpet on our fireplace mantle.

It’s a special trumpet with a long straight tube that has a banner hanging on it. We found this trumpet in an arts and crafts store and added the banner.

Ours is counted cross stitch banner that was inspired by a Christmas card. Angelic heralds announce the birth of the King, Jesus, the Light of the World.

Fanfare, written for special state events, is played by brass instruments. The birth of a king is a special state event. Here’s Christmas fanfare for the birth of the King of Kings, the Light of the World. From the album “Main Street – Songs for Today” this video is scrolling playback of a Christmas carol.

Kathy

You can get print sheet music (PDF for a cappella choir) and/or digital sheet music (MusicXML™ for brass instruments) for Light of the World.

Click here for print sheet music.

Click here for digital sheet music.
(MusicXML™ is the standard open format for sharing digital sheet music.

Check the help files in your music notation app for directions on importing MusicXML™ files.)

The counted cross stitch pattern of our trumpet banner is available here.