I LOVE LOVE - Love is an emotion not an action. Love needs a manifestation to be known. 1 John 4:9 says, "BY THIS the love of God was MANIFESTED.... " that God sent His Son for us. Love cannot be seen, only the things that love sets in motion. God loved us. Jesus coming and dying was the consequence and evidence of this love.

And so it is with our love. John asks, if we don't provide for our needy brother... "how does ... love dwell in us?" Answer: It doesn't. Paul commands, "Let love be without hypocrisy." That is, acts of love so called that do not derive from the emotion of love. We are to LOVE LOVE. Love is beautiful. It is what makes God beautiful. We are to love God for what He is. What He does tells us who He is. Often what we do does NOT tell others who we are, for our actions are not pure. Most often our love is hypocritical. It looks like love, but our actions have another agenda other than the well-being of another.

[I LOVE LOVE] - 1 Corinthians 13 explains this and the lengths to which hypocritical love can go, namely, that we can "give all [our] possessions to feed the poor" and yet not love the poor. The poor and our giving to them may just an opportunity to accomplish something else. The need of the poor is not what drives our actions, in which case we do not give all our possessions "to feed the poor", but for some other reason. It looks like we cared about the poor, but actually the poor were simply used for us to gain our real objective. True love has no "something else". Ever. True love never is expressed for anything other than the good of the object loved. Period. God did not love us in Christ so that we would praise Him. No. We should praise Him, but this is not what moved Him to send His Son. Our infinite need and misery moved Him to give. God's love is "without hypocrisy." We are to love as He loves.

[I LOVE LOVE] - Love is an END not a MEANS. When love has loved it is done. All has been accomplished once the object of true love has received the good that love intended for it. Love is deaf to praise and flattery. Love is blind to everything except the need and well-being of it object. True love is not hypocritical. How is yours? This is to be our constant aim. We are to love to love, not simply love. That is, we are to long for the well-being of others as empowered by a delight in its beauty. To love love is to love the beauty of love. To love love is love truly and not hypocritically. This is the point of this song.

SHAMELESSLY - This song was inspired by this sermon: http://www.palmvista.org/media­.php?pageID=6 on the Lord's Prayer as recorded in Luke 11:1-13. Also in that passage are two illustrations. One, teaching our needs to be importunate in pray and not to doubt God's willingness to supply our needs for His glory, and the other teaching that God is infinitely good and will give what is best for us. Always! The title, "Shamelessly", comes from the first illustration in verses 5-10. An utter persuasion of God's goodness and our right to ask for what we need because of the gospel is what drives this shameless, bold, persistent prayer. Read the text. Listen to the sermon. Watch this video.

Hey Lance. Thanks for the heads up. It's cool you got to talk to Andy. He is a great player and nice guy. And thanks for your encouragement about my doodles and songs.

Hey Wally It's your old student Lance here. I went to an Andy Timmons clinic last night. Afterwards I went over to talk to him and he actually remembered me. We reminisced about the old Sunniland Music days. We talked fondly about Amit and you, and he told me that coincidentally he was actually thinking about you the other day. He spoke such kind words about you and said that you played so beautifully. He sincerely wanted me to say hello to you. So.... "Hello" from Andy Timmons. I directed him to your youtube channel and he seemed genuinely interested in checking it out. I know he is a busy guy, but you never know you might just get an email or a post fro him one of these days. Anyway I hope things are going well for you. I'm always watching your videos whenever you post them. Great playing AND what a fantastic voice you have. Keep 'em coming! :-)

The Tears of Esau - Remember his failure. The thought is toxic to presumption. God pities us as we continue. "If [we] shrink back, [His] soul has no pleasure in [us]. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the persevering of the soul," Hebrews 10:38-39. This song reiterates that scary part of the prescribed medicine for "hands that are weak and knees that are feeble" in Hebrews 12. We need this meditation to persevere in faith. We can call it scary grace.

Hello Dave. I would love to see some pictures of the guitar that I built. They are like my lost children. I would buy them all back if I could find them. I loved making guitars but I was a poor business man. You need to be or to partner with someone who gets up everyday to sell things. Sales is a sport, but I am no athlete. I am a poet and a dreamer. I needed the money, but I didn't care about the money. One Thursday morning I woke up and closed the business. I miss the smell of rosewood and ebony and making guitars play and sound like I liked them to, but I don't miss the struggle to sell my stuff to pay my bills. Did you buy the guitar at my shop or elsewhere? Thank you very much for your encouraging remarks. Wally

Wally, Just wanted to see if you are still building guitars? I had one of your electrics up until a few years back and wish I still had it. Awesome wood and couldnt play any better. I always thought you where a few steps ahead of many others and I got endless compliments about my Joiner. Hopefully you still put your talents to work!! Dave

TURN IT OFF - "Be still and know that I am God". This is the antithesis of the world, which is, "Be busy and forget God". The devil tells his minions, "Keep them too busy to think. God's wisdom and power are so obvious in the creation surrounding them. We don't what them thinking about Him." They have succeeded. Read the headlines today and scan the ads next to them. The ads tell us who we are. Most of it will be trite, silly, and superficial. I told my children as I raised them, "I don't know if God has given any of us the gifting of Jonathan Edwards, but if we do the things that he did we will be as close to what he was as we can get." From before he was ten years old he would spend four hours a day in the woods praying and meditating on God. Do this and the similarity will be obvious. Get in the frenetic flow of life and forgo stillness and thought and the dissimilarity will also be obvious. Even the Son of Man needed solitude and prayer, how much more those with a sin nature!