daily java

Daily Java:

I will sing of the Lord’s unfailing love forever! Young and old will hear of your faithfulness. (Psalm 89:1)

I feel like a doofus singing most of the songs about loving Jesus.

It is not that I do not love Jesus. I do. I have dedicated my life to serving him and I will do anything he wants and go anywhere he sends. I truly love Jesus. However, most of the love songs to Jesus make me decidedly uncomfortable.

I am a guy. You may have noticed that. And as a guy, I have a lot of trouble singing songs about love to another guy like some of the songs around today. And even though Jesus is the Son of God, he was a man.

I mean, I really like Pastor Mel. He and I have gotten to be friends and I could say I love him. But I am not going to ask him to hold me close to him and never let me go. If he tries, I will have to hit him. And he feels the same way.

Men just feel differently than women when it comes to the praise and love songs.

I went into a church once that had a woman pastor. I forget why we were there, but while my wife was doing something – applying for a job as a secretary, that was it – while she was applying, I walked around and looked. I am and have been for a long time a church junkie. I love to look around churches. They are, after all, my life.

So I go into the auditorium. At the front was a massive picture (by massive I mean probably four feet by eight feet or larger) of “Jesus, The Loving Bridegroom.” And he is coming toward me, arms open, with a smile.

I really felt creepy. While I know I am part of the Bride of Christ, his church, at the same time, I do not want some guy walking toward me like that.

That is a big problem in the church. Most of the praise and worship is made for women, not men. Men sing different stuff, manly stuff. Men do not sing songs that feel, quite frankly, homoerotic to another man. And Jesus was after all, a man.

I follow the man Christ Jesus. And I love the man Christ Jesus. And I guess you could say in one respect that I am in love with him. But my love reaction to Jesus is different than my wife’s.

I want to tell him that I am loyal, that I will follow him, that I appreciate him, that I will fight for him and die for him. That is what, as a man, I want him to know.

And he knows I love him without me slobbering all over the floor like a bad Budweiser beer commercial, the one with the guy saying “I love you, man.”

Oh, if Kathy leads one of these songs, I will play my guitar and try to look cool up front. But I will be uncomfortable. But you know, that’s okay. Church is for everyone, men and women. We sing the manly sings and we sing the others.

And we all will sing his praise. But I have to remember, he made me a man. And he made me to be a man in the way I view things. So by being a man, I praise him with my life.