AC/DC and Jesus

As I was jogging today, I was listening to my new ipod I just got (so cool), and was running to AC/DC and had a few thoughts. I hope this makes sense, and is helpful.

Let me start with when I was in high school . . .
There was a couple disciplines I had that were very helpful.
1) One year for a whole year I "fasted" from all TV and movies. It was a wonderful season of life, where I had more time for God, growth, and felt "less corrupted by the world." I would recommend it to anyone for a season.
2) One of the big things when I was in high school was destorying all our secular music. We had smashing parties where we would throw our secular vinyl record (let's you know how old I am) up into the air and watch them shatter. This was also a good season of life where I purged what I was listening to so that I was only filling my mind with "Christian" music, and trying to dwell to the things of God. This is something that today I would recommend to some people, but certainly not everybody (but please don't smash the ipod, just delete--not as much fun but it works).

Results . . . These disciplines had several results. 1) It was good seasons of growth to put my love for God above other things that were important to me. 2) It helped me focus on God (whatever that means). 3) It was a great time of Growth. But it also resulted in other things like 1) it tought me to be separate from the world. 2) It isolated me from the thinking of the world (making it tough for me to relate much today. 3) It taught me that God is only in the "sacred" things of life, and not in the "secular". We must avoid the secular and cling to the sacred. Really seeing to different worlds out there. The world Jesus commanded us to be in was in the "sacred" world.

So today I was listening to AC/DC thinking several things while I jogged. (please amuse me by reading lists, it is how I think at times.
1) I believe God is trying to work redemptively in all of Creation, and that anything we find, we can either see the marks of God, or we can see how God might want to work redemptively in the situation. (This isn't just my thought, read Colossians 1)
2) I was thanking God for the gifts that he gave to the band. Talk about talent. Wow . . . God was using them to help my body stay more fit.
3) Highway to Hell came on. I was thinking missional thoughts. These are the poets of our age expressing the thoughts of a generation. It makes me what to ride along with them on there little highway to be able to pray for them, and look for ways to bring about redemption in the situation.

So then I thought of Jesus . . . I am so thankful for his example. We are told numerous times that Jesus went off to pray. And we are not told much about his growing up. I believe these were times in his life where mediation, fasting, prayer, communion with the father were able to help him draw strength to encounter the world with God's eyes. We need to learn from his example. Dive deep into the spiritual disciplines so that we are strong in the Lord, and the power of his might. But my life has tended to stop at this point. We also need to continue to follow his example.

Jesus engaged with the world. He hung out with them, he listen to them, their pain, their cryies, their sin, etc. And he knew how to interact with them in a way that brought redemption. To the religious of the time they called him a glutton and a drunkard (wonder how he got that title? Matt 11) but that is the reason he came.

I am learning from his Model. Trying to figure out how to reconnect to the world that I might be redemptive, and do so in a way that leads me to more times of prayer and communion with the Father.

So I recommend the fasts, but for seasons, and so that we are led back into the world to be redemptive, and begin to see God's working in everything. Let's not have the boundaries of "sacred" and "secular" because whenever God works it is sacred, and he wants to work in the secular if we will let Him.

Thanks for listening.