2-6-14
Years ago, back shortly after the Dinosaurs were gone, The Holy Spirit moved me to Jesus Christ and I certainly said yes, with no reserve. It was a sudden and lasting conversion, now 52, going on 53 years. Soon after the meeting with Christ I was with some old friends in a chance meeting and they suggested we go to such and such place, a common hangout for us. I decided not to join them. They razzed me in a good natured way, but one of them said something I did not understand at the time. His remark was “Oh, Larry hears a different drummer now.” I knew I was responding to the whisper of Jesus and clear biblical teaching, but the phrase, “a different drummer” didn’t ring a bell.
A few days later I was reading about Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau’s famous book and in the course of searching for more about him I came across his most well known statement, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
I knew that in the little time since I heard the music of Christ drumming in my heart, I was in fact stepping to a far different tune than before. And thus many of my friends continued marching to the music of their drummer and me to mine. The different sound led to totally different life paths. This separation used to be considered normal upon conversion.
You would think the “different drummer” aspect of the Christian life would end at the above mentioned point. I found after years of trying to fit someone else’s mold, that Christ has a mold for me. In the first several years of walking with and learning about Jesus I looked up to several different “role” models and consciously attempted to be like them. I failed to factor in the reality that Christ may not have called me to be like my hero’s, but cooperate with the Word, The Spirit and the leading to be what God wanted to perform in me.
You know where this leads. Often among good Christians God has a way of letting you hear the drumbeat of the Lord with a slightly different cadence. I discovered that many of the notes in the drum of the group did not match scripture, or me. To give you an idea, I love an old song written back in 1864, with the music coming along in 1866. The title is When You and I Were Young, Maggi. I heard the song one night when Joyce and I were attending a fund raiser and the Irish Tenors performed the song. I actually wept as I thought the lyrics were a panorama of Joyce and me being young in the long ago and now we were aged. I still have trouble reading the words or trying to sing the song without weeping so hard I cannot finish the song. Yet, the other day I heard a group with a different style of music, a different sound, and I did not like the song at all. I was used to and moved by the prior sound.
As you and I grow in the truth and grace of Christ, He often throws the core truth at us wrapped in the clothes and sound of the drummer, the cadence playing differently for us. I am not talking about departing from any scriptural truth, but I am talking about a style that is biblical, but perhaps different from the group or denomination, or God forbid, different than what whomever the reigning guru or paper says is the correct way to comb your hair, or prepare your sermon, or the outreach method the Lord has laid on your heart.
The purpose of this article is to help you to understand the truth that if each one of us is unique, and we are, then we must take time to study, to pray and to observe others and at last finally come to grips with just who and what we are in Jesus Christ. A glance or in depth study of God’s word will show that very few of the champions God used in the Old or New Testament were very much alike. Yet they pleased Him.
The very good men/women who have a tremendous impact on my life are very different in their manner, their approach to personal relationships and to the conducting of the ministry the Lord has entrusted to them. In spite of these differences each one is truly outstanding in the work God has laid on him/her and they appear to be joyful. Ok, most of them.
A man who marched to the drum cadence of Christ wrote, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” Philippians 3:13.
Copyright © 2014 Larry LillyContact Oral Deckard for any computer work. He is an honest professional with a heart for helping with your IT needs. Click
Development-Resourceshttp://development-resources.com/index.html
Years ago, back shortly after the Dinosaurs were gone, The Holy Spirit moved me to Jesus Christ and I certainly said yes, with no reserve. It was a sudden and lasting conversion, now 52, going on 53 years. Soon after the meeting with Christ I was with some old friends in a chance meeting and they suggested we go to such and such place, a common hangout for us. I decided not to join them. They razzed me in a good natured way, but one of them said something I did not understand at the time. His remark was “Oh, Larry hears a different drummer now.” I knew I was responding to the whisper of Jesus and clear biblical teaching, but the phrase, “a different drummer” didn’t ring a bell.
A few days later I was reading about Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau’s famous book and in the course of searching for more about him I came across his most well known statement, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
I knew that in the little time since I heard the music of Christ drumming in my heart, I was in fact stepping to a far different tune than before. And thus many of my friends continued marching to the music of their drummer and me to mine. The different sound led to totally different life paths. This separation used to be considered normal upon conversion.
You would think the “different drummer” aspect of the Christian life would end at the above mentioned point. I found after years of trying to fit someone else’s mold, that Christ has a mold for me. In the first several years of walking with and learning about Jesus I looked up to several different “role” models and consciously attempted to be like them. I failed to factor in the reality that Christ may not have called me to be like my hero’s, but cooperate with the Word, The Spirit and the leading to be what God wanted to perform in me.
You know where this leads. Often among good Christians God has a way of letting you hear the drumbeat of the Lord with a slightly different cadence. I discovered that many of the notes in the drum of the group did not match scripture, or me. To give you an idea, I love an old song written back in 1864, with the music coming along in 1866. The title is When You and I Were Young, Maggi. I heard the song one night when Joyce and I were attending a fund raiser and the Irish Tenors performed the song. I actually wept as I thought the lyrics were a panorama of Joyce and me being young in the long ago and now we were aged. I still have trouble reading the words or trying to sing the song without weeping so hard I cannot finish the song. Yet, the other day I heard a group with a different style of music, a different sound, and I did not like the song at all. I was used to and moved by the prior sound.
As you and I grow in the truth and grace of Christ, He often throws the core truth at us wrapped in the clothes and sound of the drummer, the cadence playing differently for us. I am not talking about departing from any scriptural truth, but I am talking about a style that is biblical, but perhaps different from the group or denomination, or God forbid, different than what whomever the reigning guru or paper says is the correct way to comb your hair, or prepare your sermon, or the outreach method the Lord has laid on your heart.
The purpose of this article is to help you to understand the truth that if each one of us is unique, and we are, then we must take time to study, to pray and to observe others and at last finally come to grips with just who and what we are in Jesus Christ. A glance or in depth study of God’s word will show that very few of the champions God used in the Old or New Testament were very much alike. Yet they pleased Him.
The very good men/women who have a tremendous impact on my life are very different in their manner, their approach to personal relationships and to the conducting of the ministry the Lord has entrusted to them. In spite of these differences each one is truly outstanding in the work God has laid on him/her and they appear to be joyful. Ok, most of them.
A man who marched to the drum cadence of Christ wrote, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” Philippians 3:13.
Copyright © 2014 Larry LillyContact Oral Deckard for any computer work. He is an honest professional with a heart for helping with your IT needs. Click
Development-Resourceshttp://development-resources.com/index.html
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