Welcome To The Jungle Video Critiques The World

I discovered musical artist Novo Amor yesterday (and my daughter was quick to inform me that she discovered him first). Anyway, this video of Novo Amor covering the Guns N’ Roses hit song Welcome to the Jungle offers a visual critique of the ways of the world…

Speaking of the ways of the world, here are some lines from my message on Sunday entitled “Sealed With A Kiss” -

For the Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children. —Romans 8.16

Did you catch that? We really are God’s children.

You’ve been sealed with a kiss. Marked. Identified. Reminded. Again and again.

And as God’s children, God wants us to be who we are. God is not looking for some kind of robotic assembly-line Christianity from us.

God is not stripping away our qualities, quirks, and character, our unique interests and gifts and abilities. God wants children. Beautiful, unique, wonderfully fascinating children.

George Wood – the leader of the Assemblies of God churches (representing over 3 million people in the US) – recently said…

God has not called His church to be a cookie cutter with all the cookies neatly rolling down the conveyor belt with a monotonous sameness. We must not seek the outward stamp of uniformity but the inward stamp of the Holy Spirit who bears witness that we are the children of God.

Oh wow. I really love that.

We’re not building some cookie cutter Christianity here.

No outward stamp of uniformity. But we say yes and amen to the inward stamp (or seal) of the Holy Spirit.

We are stamped, sealed, marked, identified, reminded… that yes we are the children of God.

Young, old, black , white, rich, poor, foreign, native… we are the family of God.

We are family. We are kin.

That’s right.

The world wants us to forget. But the Spirit reminds us. We’ve been sealed with a kiss.

The world wants us to forget that we belong to one another.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget that we are a people of hope.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget that there is Good News.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget the words of our savior: in this world you will have many troubles, but be of good cheer – for I have overcome the world. 

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget the ways of the Kingdom.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget love.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget joy.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget peace.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget patience.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget kindness.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget goodness.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget faithfulness.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget gentleness.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget self-control.

But the Spirit reminds us.

The world wants us to forget…

But the Spirit reminds us of who we really are:

Sons and daughters of God.