Those of us of a certain age remember The Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Neither can we who are believers, which, although it may not seem like it at the time, is a good thing.

The latest Cephas Hour episode touches on this and other topics, including avoiding negative people and the call to come to Christ like a child without being childish. Artists in this episode are 77s, Bob Bennett, Bringing Home, Crystoria, Daniel Amos, Lenny LeBlanc, Matthew Ward, Oden Fong, Rachel Wilhelm, Servant, Terry Scott Taylor, The Choir, Undercover, and Whiteheart. The show is available on demand at its website (https://cephashour.com/2023/08/08/cephas-hour-episode-105-release-date-august-8-2023/). It is also available via the following podcast services:

• Amazon
• Apple
• Audacy
• Google
• iHeart
• radio.net
• TuneIn

The show also plays songs by artists who are either raising funds to release new material (Crystoria), re-release a classic album (The Choir), or have new music available (Bringing Home and Rachel Wilhelm). Links to the campaigns:

• Crystoria
• The Choir

The new Bringing Home song is available on all popular streaming services. You can pre-order the new Rachel Wilhelm album at her Bandcamp page.

Hope it helps. Thanks.

A trope routinely appeared in Westerns back when they still made Westerns. It would come at the end of the movie. The hero, secretly in love with the heroine, would risk his life to save her from the bad guys. Then, in the movie’s final scene, the hero looks at the homestead doorway in which the heroine would be standing … next to her boyfriend, who couldn’t have rescued a mountain lion from an overly caffeinated poodle, let alone his girlfriend from the bad guys. So, the hero would look down at his faithful dog, who was invariably named Jake, and say to the pup, “Well, just you and me again, Jake.” At which point, the hero would bury his feelings as he and Jake walked off into the sunset.

There’s a lot of that in the Christian life. There’s a lot of burying your feelings, keeping your heart to yourself, and seeking solace in Christ’s embrace. It goes with doing the right thing regarding interacting with other people, especially members of the opposite sex. You don’t make that suggestion. You don’t try that move. You don’t facilitate the situation in which incorrect activities can transpire. You just … don’t.

In all likelihood, this will not be a grand and glorious moment in which a righteous glow fills your countenance, and you look for all the world like a hero in a Cecil B. DeMille movie. Instead, there will be the mixed emotions of knowing you did the right thing, yet doing so while every fiber of your being, every thought in your head, and every desire in your heart screamed to do what you wanted to do. And make no mistake, you wanted to. There is no nobility here. There is the admittance that you and I and everyone else on this planet are sinners, often unable to physically say or do the sin by the barest of margins, yet sinners all the same.

It makes us long for our eternal Home all the more.

Never waste time on the individual who, regardless of position, past accomplishments, or present accomplishments, offers nothing but insults and sarcasm instead of ideas and solutions.

Snark and snipe are easy. Raging against the dying of the light can be quite poetic. And, it bears mention that Scripture is laced with people of God, including Jesus Christ Himself, using sarcasm to drive a point home. That said, sarcasm in Scripture is always part of a process and never a means in and of itself. So, speak wisely. And listen wisely. Don’t waste your time on pot stirring promulgators.

There is a seeming irony in how, while we live in a world desecrated and devastated by adults stubbornly refusing to abandon childhood fantasies, our calling is to come to Christ like children. There is no conflict. God is our Father, and regardless of how many decades we have spent or have left to spend on this dusty orb, we are always His children. Yes, children growing in wisdom and behaving like adults, for maturity and responsibility are the commands to which all believers strive to adhere. Yet, we are still children in that, just as children seek to continually learn and experience one thing more while still unconsciously retaining youth’s innocent exuberance, we aim to grow daily in knowledge and the pursuit of becoming more like the Ultimate Man, Christ Jesus.