Is Music Choice Really that Critical, Part 2

The lyrics of our life

I am not implying that all secular music is bad, because I don’t believe that.  What I am saying is we are to “guard our hearts because it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).  I am very musically inclined and lyrics pop randomly in my head, whether I want them to or not.  Sometimes it is applicable to a situation, sometimes it just there in my brain rolling around and takes very little to bring it to the surface.

Unfortunately, many times it is lyrics I don’t want to loop in my brain because they are not edifying at all.  Here’s an example.  I answered an ad on Craigslist calling for singer to audition for a new a cappella group in my town.  I answered the ad and was instructed to learn, and be ready for perform, two songs.  One song is by James Taylor (That Lonesome Road), the other by Lady Gaga (You and I).  My husband expressed surprise that I would perform a Lady Gaga song, and I said, it’s not that bad.  Let me clue you in, when you have to use the word “that”in conjunction with the word “bad” to describe something, you have already made the prosecution’s case for them.  And it’s just an audition after all, right?

Here’s an excerpt:

You taste like whiskey when you kiss me, oh
I’ll give anything again to be your baby doll
This time I’m not leaving without you

He said, “Sit back down where you belong
In the corner of my bar with your high heels on”
Sit back down on the couch where we
Made love the first time and you said to me…

Uh, okay, it’s not that good either.  Well, I decided I could not sing this even for “just and audition” because it does not reflect my beliefs and values, and I know God would not honor that choice.  Okay, so you see my point, right?  Well, let’s stroll down memory lane and see what else pops up still hanging around in my brain from way back when.

How about a line from “Love the One You’re With” that was scrolling through my mind the other day for no apparent reason – “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”  Hmmm.  Well, that’s not really good.  How about some country music?  Confederate Railroad – “I like my women a little on the trashy side, when they wear their clothes too tight and their hair is dyed.”  Okay, not that either.

You probably have your own list.  It’s not “just a song”.  It gets in your head.  Christians are called to be in the world, not of it.  You cannot mix the things of the world with the things of God.  2 Corinthians Chapter 6 says this:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?  What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?  What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

“I will live with them

and walk among them,

and I will be their God,

and they will be my people.”

Therefore,

“Come out from them

and be separate,

says the Lord.

Touch no unclean thing,

and I will receive you.”

If Jesus wouldn’t listen to it, you shouldn’t either.  It doesn’t build up, and much of it tears down.  We become callous to the things we should take offense at and take offense at the things we should be standing up for.  Stand up for God; take the road less travelled.  Be sanctified and holy in all things, not just the things you want to do.  I can, and will, sacrifice for God, music I know He would not approve of.  He doesn’t disapprove out of meanness, He disapproves out of love.