Now I'm A Believer!

Most people are aware that Davey Jones of Monkees fame died a few days ago at the age of 66. I listened for a little while to a tribute on Cousin Brucie's XM radio program and one of their hits that he played was, Now I'm A Believer. The refrain caught my attention in a way that it never had before:

Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer.
Not a trace of doubt in my mind.
I'm in love, I'm a believer!
I couldn't leave her if I tried.


Now when this song came out in November of 1966 I was a junior in an all boys, Catholic high school. The war was raging in Vietnam. Almost 400,000 of our military had already arrived (I would show up a little less than four years later) and we were bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail heavily. Back home, Ronald Reagan was running for Governor of California. As for me...I was a daydream believer, scribbling girls' names on the cover of my books instead of paying attention to Brother Michael, then going home and playing touch football for a few hours before sitting down in time to watch Gilligan's Island on CBS while the Monkees were a couple of clicks over on NBC. Who would guess that such a budding genius chose to stay up long enough to watch I Spy instead of getting enough sleep to be attentive in the following day's classes? It was definitely the year for pop music...1966... every bit as much a drug to the youth as any of the tech-toys of today.

When I heard those lyrics anew yesterday, my thoughts immediately turned to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This type of thought transference isn't all together new to me for on occasion I would listen to a 6os song and see the lyrics as an invitation from the enemy of Jesus Christ (one can't say Satan today and be taken seriously,) to the young listener. For example, this one from The Doors ...Light My Fire (another 1966 hit):

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre

Interestingly, to me anyway, Jim Morrison died of a drug overdose in Paris and I just now watched Midnight in Paris, the new Woody Allen film where the main character at first dreams of the golden age of Gay Paree in the 1920s (spoiler here!) only to see that there is no golden age. Meanwhile, back in Special Dogville, I commented on that very topic in my last blog! But I digress as the phrase goes. My message for today...finally...is, one cannot love Christ, nor believe in Him, without seeing Him. Not a vision, but in truth as written in His Word. Once one does, through the Holy Spirit, one cannot but love Him! One can profess faith, become a minister, even win souls to Him without ever having seen Him (for religious faith is powerful even when it is in false religion, and don't we know that today from the front pages of our newspapers.)  It's the Word of God preached, proclaimed and read that God uses as a conduit for salvation.  If one sees Christ then one would also have to see oneself, and our dire predicament today, as sinners hopelessly adrift in a life leading to judgement. If one sees Christ... one sees the cross... one feels the burden of who we are and one sees the blessed promise. Indeed, one cannot see all of this and not believe and one cannot believe without truly seeing who Jesus Christ is. So, the Monkees hit, Now I'm A Believer, with Mickey Dolenz singing lead (and written by Neil Diamond by the way,) envisioned a man falling in love after seeing the object of that love. I know the same feeling in the love for my wife, but I also know it in the love for our Savior, our Redeemer, and our King:

Then I saw His face, now I'm a believer
.............Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptised. (Acts 9: 17,18 ESV)
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
I'm in love, I'm a believer
I couldn't leave Him if I tried
..............but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. (2 Tim 1:12 ESV)