ALONE
ALONE
Christ and Christ alone
Christ and Christ alone
He lived and died for me
Christ and Christ alone
His truth has set me free
His truth has set me free
Christ and Christ alone
His love conforms my art
Christ and Christ alone
None other holds my heart
Christ and Christ alone
Not His mother or His dad
Christ and Christ alone
Only Jesus makes me glad
Christ and Christ alone
He lives today and saved my soul
One name is worthy of all my praise
Jesus Christ and Christ alone
When All That Is Solid Melts Into Air
The last few years have been a time when many familiar things, many things we take for granted, have not only been shown to be fragile but have collapsed or disappeared. Great companies now come and go with a disturbing frequency and things seem to change at an ever-increasing rate. Whether this is real or perceived, the shrinking of space and the acceleration of time are issues being felt by many, and they are regular social phenomena.
People generally do not like much change too fast. Yet old boundaries disappear; older values are doubted, questioned, or rejected. Familiar ways, places, or people get moved or change. Our desire for stability, for security, for some degree of permanence is incessantly pressured by a culture addicted to novelty and the new for newness' sake. We experience what a friend of mine once called "cultural vaporization." As with a pot of boiling water left on sustained heat, the water evaporates; so with many cultural dimensions subjected to constant pressure or deconstruction, they too, evaporate.
The world of the present is not always a human friendly habitat. Often driven by visions of progress, beliefs in the efficacy of education, freedom and technology as the means of liberation, the 20th and early 21st centuries appear to have reached the limits or limitations of our created systems. They are not all bad, but they are by definition, limited, a fact that many seem unable or unwilling to admit.
The present response is itself so flawed that we are left in a world of self-defined, self-controlled, and self-satisfying pursuits. These are important and necessary correctives to the grand strategies of the past, the arrogant sense of mastery, and the delusions fostered by unrealistic views of humanity and our potential, but they lack the substance or a sufficient answer or response to the deepest issues.
Who and what are we? What is reality; what is the really real and who says so? If there is a transcendent God, who has a purpose, a will, and a way for life and creation, then God's will and way are central to how things operate and how they should operate. The management of life and the path of wise living in Christian terms is called stewardship, and it's based on a view of economics which implies following God's order, rule and way as the pattern for life.
The vision that humanity has built, particularly since the late 18th century unto the present, has been filled with great promises but less than thrilling outcomes. No one denies or devalues all the real and meaningful benefits in science, health, education, and technology, but they are insufficient in themselves to qualify as ultimate goods or sufficient explanations of the good. Their failures and limits are all too apparent.
Yet amidst uncertainty, cultural vaporization, and constant change, there is the promise of the one who said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." When it seems like all that is solid is melting into air, Francis Schaeffer would remind us that God is there and is not silent. Our hopes can anchor on the one who never changes and offers eternal rest, whose kingdom is eternal, unshakable, and secure. This is indeed a hope to live for!
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