Is Jesus At the Keyboard of Your Life?
Many years ago, there was a beautiful stone cathedral that had one of the most magnificent pipe organs on the continent. On a certain Saturday afternoon, the sexton was making a final check of the choir loft high in the balcony at the back of the church. He thought all of the doors were locked and that there was no one around, so he was startled to hear footsteps echoing on the narrow stone stairway leading up to the balcony. Suddenly, a man in slightly tattered clothes appeared in the doorway.
The stranger spoke and said, “Excuse me, sir, I’ve come from quite a distance to see this organ and this cathedral. Would you mind opening the console so that I might take a closer look?
At first, the custodian refused, but the stranger seemed so eager and insistent that he finally relented. The man looked lovingly at the ranks of keyboards, at the stops and pedals, and then hesitantly, asked, “May I sit on the bench?” “Absolutely not!” The sexton replied. “What if the organist came in and found you sitting there? I’d probably lose my job!”
However, the stranger was so gently persistent that the sexton finally gave in but said, “all right, you can sit there, but only for a moment.’
The custodian noticed that the stranger seemed to be very much at home as he slid on to the organ bench. The custodian sensed the next question before the stranger even finished it and said, “No! Definitely you may not play the organ. I do not even want you to touch those keys No one is allowed to play it except the cathedral organist.”
The stranger’s face fell, and his deep disappointment was so obvious. He reminded the custodian how far he had come and assured him that no damage would be done. Finally, the sexton relented and told him he could play the organ and then he would have to leave.
Overjoyed, the stranger pulled out some of the stops, pushed others in, and lovingly poised his fingers over the keys. Suddenly the cathedral was filled with the most beautiful music the custodian had ever heard in all of his years at that place. The music seemed to lift him heavenward. It rang from the rafters, shook the windows and touched the sexton’s heart in a way no music, indeed no message ever had. He was so taken with the breathtaking beauty of the melody he was hearing that he half-expected a choir of angels to suddenly appear and join in.
Then, as suddenly as he had begun, the dowdy stranger stopped playing, slid off the bench and started down the stairway.
The custodian started after him saying, “Wait! That was the most beautiful music I have ever heard. Who are you?” But the stranger had already disappeared down the narrow dark stairway. The sexton hurried after him, pushing through the doorway into the sunlight, where a crowd of people had gathered, drawn by the dramatic music that had soared from the cathedral.
One of the men the crowd yelled, “Why didn’t you tell us?” The sexton replied, “Tell you what?”
The man said, “That Mendelssohn was here! I heard the music and couldn’t believe my ears. I got here just in time to see him leave. He vanished into the crowd. But it was him all right, Felix Mendelssohn was here!”
Just think about that for a moment. Felix Mendelssohn, one of the greatest organists and composers of the 19th century, was the dowdy stranger who begged the sexton to let him play!
The crowd slipped away and the awestruck sexton was left alone in that great cathedral, the beautiful organ music still ringing in his ears. “Just think”! He softly said to himself. “I almost kept the master from playing his music in my cathedral.”
Jesus Christ is the master musician. Do you have any idea the music He could produce in and through your life if you invited Him to sit at the keyboard of your heart and compose the music He would love to produce?
Have you ever been prompted by the Holy Spirit to do something and you resisted His leading?
Have you wondered what you missed out on by your saying “no” to Him? Over the years, I had talked with numbers of people who sensed God was calling them to some field of ministry and they said “no” or they put it off until the tug of their hearts went away. I have never met one person who resisted what God wanted them to do, who ever felt good about it.
In Matthew 19:16-22, We read about a very personable young man who came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” … Jesus said to him, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” Jesus listed them for him and he replied, “I have kept all of these. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go sell all your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.” In verse 22 we read, “When the young man heard that command, he went away grieving, because he had many possessions”
It is not wrong to be rich. But do your riches own you? Do they keep you from doing what God wants you to do with your life I think what Jesus asked of the young man was designed to show him —
1. His love of his possessions was in conflict with the tenth commandment. (Exodus 20:17)
2. His lack of concern for the poor was in conflict with the commandment to love his neighbor.
3. His love of his possessions surpassed his love for God, thus making him guilty of idolatry.
How is it with you and me? Do we love anyone or anything more than we love our God? In Deuteronomy 6:5 God said, “Love the LORD your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.”
In Mark 12:28-31 a scribe asked Jesus, “Which command is the most important?” Jesus answered him, “Listen Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is One. Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
Jesus wanted the scribe to see that there is a direct correlation between our love for God and our love for our neighbor.
So, I close at the point we began with. Who is at the keyboard of your heart and what kind of music is coming out of your life? If you and I are true disciples of Christ, we will have a supreme love for our LORD, who loved us and gave Himself for us.
God bless you,
Pastor Leonard
