Principle: Two Places To Live

"I ask only one thing from the Lord. This is what I want most: Let me live in the Lord ’s house all my life, enjoying the Lord ’s beauty and spending time in his palace."  Psalm 27:4 ERV

"Live-be an inhabitant of, spend most of one’s life in"

I’m not sure if you noticed that I’ve been writing more entries in my journal lately. I’m on my 2nd week of the 2-week mandatory vacation mandated by our company and this is  for the month of September. I also had a 2-week vacation last August and it gets better, in October, I’ll have another 2 weeks vacation. I have a total of 6 weeks PTO (paid time off) to burn and I’m running out of things to do. I’ve shared mostly my activities because I felt that some of you who live in the US can benefit. It’s good to share stuff especially if what I’m sharing is relevant to you. If it is not, then pardon me and move to the next page.

Yesterday was a different day for me in a special way. I only had to run 2 miles for my daily dose of aerobic exercise. But before I did my run, I did a "lifestyle switch".

In my home office, I built a very nice sound system last year. The components are the following: a 10 channel Allen Heath mixer ZED 12FX, a 31 band EQ, Behringer FBQ3102 and two 15" Alto powered speakers TS115A and a 12" sub. The music player is my Dell laptop E4300 on a docking station with dual monitors and connected to Spotify Premium account. Yes, this is a full blown Public Address system being deployed is my home office. The sound is very crystal clear and can be so loud if I turned it up.

 

When I’m at home, there is always Christian music playing. I only listen to Christian music.  When I say "only Christian music, I mean only Christian music". Many years ago, after I received Christ in my life, I have to burn all my life collection of rock in roll music. It was at first so impossible to do but I did it anyway to show commitment to God that my transformation was "for real". Years passed, the desire to listen to my old tunes just disappeared completely. Sometimes when I hear a song from the Eagles, Neil Young, Foreigners, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Asin, Freddie Aguilar, America, the Beatles, Rod Stewart, Jim Croce and many more I can’t remember- this brings back old memories. It would feel like time was frozen and then I am sent back to the specific moment or event.

 

Yesterday, after I finished reading/studying the daily Bible verse, an idea came up (maybe a temptation). I was alone in the house and no one is around to judge me or convict me (Holy Spirit was there because I cried)  and so I searched for some old songs in Spotify and played them one by one. I don’t know if some of you have a Spotify account but if you do, be careful because at your fingertips, you have access to all songs in the ‘whole world’ – I mean all songs. I grow up in the Philippines and I used to  listen to Freddie and Asin. For some reason, their songs collided with my disaster in life when I was still a teenager. My father died when I was 16 (April 1983 right after high school) and listening to their music seems like they were my confession in life or therapy. I spent hours listening to the old tunes and instead of being taken back in time, the Holy Spirit started talking to my heart and tears rolled out from eyes reminding me of my transformation. The message was -  "that was you before and you’ve come a long way as I transformed your life to where and what you are right now".

 

After listening for 2 hours or so, I then downloaded a few songs to my iPhone Spotify account and went for a 2 mile run. While running, I continued listening to my old non-Christian music songs. When I got home after the run, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart – now delete all those music you’ve just downloaded and get back to Hillsong music.

As I reflect to what just happened, I learned quite a few critical things as the youversion verse of the day is about living our life in the Lord’s house fits to what I’ve experience.

There are two places to live in this world, inside the Lord’s house or outside. The thing that I did yesterday – listening to my old music was not living in God’s presence. I was living outside the Lord’s house.  How do I know? I just know!

I don’t want to convince you to stop listening to your non-Christian music. Its not my business to do that. That is God’s job – to give you a new heart and a new desire. It is not a thing to do or execute. It is a result of an inner transformation – as you decide that you have no more desire to worship other gods anymore.

 

My children has smartphones. They are listening to music that I have no idea what the singer is singing about or the lyrics it contain or the message they confess. I respect them – I was there before and I want them to switch to Christian music as part of their testimony one day and not because daddy said so.

6 Reasons Why I listen to Christian music only?

1. It’s my worship.

2. It’s my prayer and confession and declaration.

3. I’m filled with encouragement instead of negative emotion. Listen to the lyrics closely word for word and ask about what the song is really about. Mostly, it is about a struggle of  love or bad feelings, a sad story, a "should" statement.

4. It’s reprogramming my mind and heart with the Word. Praise and Worship music strengthens me spiritually.

5. I don’t want to sing Praise and Worship songs on Sundays only at Church. I want it 24/7 if possible.

6. I’m doing a song rehearsal, because in heaven, those are the things we normally do. "So we will sing and play songs in the Lord’s Temple all the days of our life" Isaiah 38.20.

I’d better get used to it.