Justified - New original song

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The Healing Power of Jesus (And Magnets)

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I'd like to apologize in advance. This is more of a rant than my usual blog post. I saw this ad in the USA Weekend newspaper insert a couple of months ago and felt like I needed to say something about it. Here goes:

Using the Lord's name in vain. It's more subtle than you might think. It's more serious than a few choice exclamations that spew from our mouths or from the movie or television screen. Using the Lord's name in vain is about attaching His Name to something that He wouldn't. Why is the Lord's name so important? It's because His name describes His nature and character. When the Lord told Moses, "I AM THAT I AM," He was saying that for every hurt, for every need, for every joy, for every sorrow, He is enough.

Why would we want to cheapen His nature and character by stamping the name of Jesus on a copper and magnet bracelet. The obvious reason is for personal gain. The advertiser is using the fact that our God is Adonai Rophe (The LORD our Healer) to make some money.

Aren't there other ways we misuse the Lord's name?

How about false prophecy? "The Lord said..." or "God told me" or "God gave me this (song/needlepoint/underwater woven basket)". Do I believe God still speaks? Absolutely! He speaks in accordance with the Scripture and in accordance with His nature and character. I don't believe that God writes bad songs. The book of Psalms is proof of that. However there are some terrible songs floating around out there that God supposedly gave someone. We use this God cloak as a defense mechanism. We want to believe that invoking God's name elevates our idea, our song, our needlepoint above scrutiny. I believe that God gives us talent and creativity to use for His glory. Let's take ownership of our crafts and not try to blame God for our bad art.

"I'm a Christian plumber." I believe that identifying yourself as a Christian plumber, or carpenter, or mechanic, or lawyer is another subtle way of using the Lord's name in vain. It is meant to give your potential customer some sense of comfort knowing that a Jesus-approved professional is coming to their aid. Unfortunately, many so-called Christian professionals are careless at their jobs and have misrepresented the character of the One they supposedly represent. Just be excellent at your job, whatever it is, and use the respect you earn as an avenue to share the gospel.

There are many more subtle ways that we use the Lord's name in vain. I've only listed the ones that I'm not personally guilty of.

That, my friends, was a joke.

Over to you: In what other ways (whether blatant or subtle) do we misuse the Lord's name? Discuss amongst yourselves.

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We Repeat to Remember

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Do you remember this clip from Sesame Street? A little girl is sent to the store by her Mom to pick up three things: A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter. All the way to the store she repeats these things to herself over and over so that she'll remember what she is supposed to buy.  

Dear Worship Leaders: Lead Better Songs

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A few days ago, I was listening to some music on Spotify. I love Spotify because I can call up almost anything that has ever been released to the public. This particular time I was listening to some country music that I enjoyed in high school and early college. Oh alright! It was Little Texas. I think they were a great band that had a few great songs, but they were plagued with too many mediocre songs (and interpersonal problems). This post is not about Little Texas, though.

I couldn't help but notice that I remembered every word to every song. I don't walk around in my daily life trying to remember words to Little Texas songs, but here they were like I had just listened to the songs yesterday. Not only could I remember every word, I remembered every guitar lick and motif.

[VIDEO] New song - Justified

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Hey, friends! I'm excited to share a new song with you. I wrote it a couple of weeks ago and I'm really pleased with it. I had been sitting on this one line, "We, who deserve death, find ourselves swimming in a sea of forgiveness," for months. I did not know where to go with the song but, months later, I stumbled upon a chorus idea. I was really excited to be able to put the two ideas together. I think this is possibly my best song to date. It is definitely my most doctrinally-formative songs. Here's a video of me leading the song at Bethel Bible Church Arbor Campus in Tyler, Texas yesterday. Under the video, you'll see a link to download my acoustic demo and a lyric/chord chart.

or click here to view the files.

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[Video] New Song - Let Us Fix Our Eyes

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Here is a new original song for worship. I wrote the lyric based on a passage in Hebrews 12. It is a short song, so I used it in the place of a spoken exhortation or scripture reading between songs. Hope you enjoy!

[Video] New Song - Behold The Lamb

Here is a new song I wrote back in January. I'm glad to share it with you. Take a look:



Behold The Lamb by Toby Baxley
© Copyright 2011 Toby Baxley (admin. by PraiseCharts Publishing, Inc.)

CLICK HERE to download the MP3 and sheet music. The first 15 commenters will receive a download link via email to download the music for free.

Stay Focused While Leading Worship

Due to the rise of popularity in "worship music" as a radio genre, leading worship has been romanticized to the point that we expect it to be a completely sublime arena experience, where we as leaders are transported from our solid human form into a vapor floating around in the heavenly places, only to condense back into solid form after "worship" is over, metaphorically speaking, of course. While that might happen sometimes, more often here in the real world, it is like spinning plates while riding a unicycle. We're usually just trying to keep our balance while keeping all of the elements of worship from crashing to the floor.