Matthew West - Hello, My Name Is (Lyrics)

I know I have not blogged in a little while and I am very sorry for that friends. We have had an illness in the family and getting prepared for the holidays... I have been slightly busy and have neglected my blog. Guess it's a good thing I have not committed to an exact frequency of postings yet! LOL Anyway... I was listening to my favorite Matthew West song, "Hello, my name is" and it got me to thinking. This song always moves me but when I dig a little deeper inside myself I realize why it moves me. It speaks a truth that I have only just recently begun to allow to sink into my heart. I want to share that truth with you guys. So here ya go:

Have you ever felt like you were so small and insignificant that God really wasn't all that worried about you? Have you ever felt like such a total screw up that maybe he had just thrown up his hands and given up on you? Have you ever thought that your sin was so bad, or the place in your life where you were was so dark and far away that God couldn't reach you? Or maybe that he didn't want to reach you anymore? Have you ever felt totally alone and defeated? Yep? Me too! Infact I have spent the better part of my life thinking God was way too busy to worry about a train wreak like me. I was nothing to Him. I was insignificant. I was no saint... I have done things in my past that I was so ashamed of I couldn't even say them out loud. Things that made me think God wanted nothing to do with me... but guess what! I WAS WRONG!!!
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39
 Today I want to talk about those lies that Satan whispers in our ears telling us we aren't important, God doesn't care, we are so bad and awful that he doesn't want us any more. Those are LIES. The devil is a liar and a deciever. He will tell you anything to try and keep you from God. God's word is the truth and the only truth. Yes, sin is seperation from God. Before Jesus if you sinned you were apart from God and the wages of that sin was death. But, Jesus paid your debt. You are free and clear! The slate is whiped clean. Now we can have a close and personal relationship with God no matter what our sins are because we are washed in the blood of the Lamb.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1 Satan knows us almost as well as God does. He knows where are weaknesses are, he searches them out, measures our resolve. He prowls in the darkness like a lion waiting for just the right moment to pounce and attack you. He will use what he knows about you to entice you to sin. He carefully aims temptaions and snares at us, like a hunter aims his rifle. Our weaknesses are his targets and he is an expert marksman.
"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." 1Peter 5:8
He is that whisper in the ear of the strong-willed telling them they can do it all on their own, they need no one, they are strong and self-sufficient. He is that nagging fear in the back of the mind of the anxious. He is that small voice whipsering that "just one piece of cake" won't hurt to the woman who is overweight and trying to diet. He finds that young girl without a father, longing for the love of a man, any man, and lies and tells her that this man or that man can fill the empty places in her heart. Satan is the one telling you "it's just one little sin, no biggie, you can do _____" He is very carefully casting his net and luring you into him.

Once you've given in to that temptation he takes it one step further and convinces you that your sin was so horrible that God doesn't love you anymore because of it. Satan will lie and twist any thing and every thing he can to convince you that God is no longer on your side. Satan was once an angel himself, he knows the scripture, and he will use even that to pull you down into his world of dispair. Matthew 7:15:20 talks about true and false prophets. We are told in these lines of scripture that a good tree can bear only good fruit and a bad tree only bad fruit. Satan loves to use lines like these to whisper in your ear "see, you did a bad thing, you are producing bad fruit, you must be a bad tree, and God hates bad trees." Satan tends to forget that while he may know parts of you, God knows ALL of you. God knows your heart. He knows the deepest, most intimate parts of you. God knows that deep down inside you are fundamentally good. You may do a bad thing from time to time but that does not make YOU bad.

We do not have to allow our sins to define us. Even though Satan wants us to believe that lie, we don't have to. We have been set free by Jesus Christ. Jesus willing came into this world, walked a perfect life, and was nailed to a cross to pay for YOUR sins, so that you may not be judged, condemned, defined, or heald captive by them any longer. When you have come to know and believe and trust that, you are FREE. The say "the truth will set you free", Jesus says "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through ME." John 14:6. Jesus is the truth that will set you free from condemnation.
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood- to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. Romans 4: 23-25
See, Satan very convieniently forgets to add in the part where God knows that we all sin. He knows that we are not perfect and never will be, he knows that we alone can not be justified or redeemed. That is why He sent his son as a sacrifice for us. Alone we are nothing but dirty sinners, unworthy of God's love or grace. But through Jesus Christ we are cleansed, bought and paid for, ransomed out of our dark, desolate, sinful lives. We are saved and justified through the blood of the lamb.
"Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses." Acts 13:39
I have spent a large part of my life judging and condeming myself. I have listened to Satan's lies and distanced myself from God and the church. I have stood back praying for everyone around me, believeing that God would work in their lives, but not mine. I believed that God was a good, kind, and loving god for everyone but me. I allowed Satan to isolate me and make me feel all alone. I allowed his lies to convince me that I was the only one in the world who had commited the awful sins that I had. I was the only one who was so horrible that God could never love or forgive me. I believed that where I was God could never reach, or even want to reach. I was a lost cause and so small and insignificant that God couldn't be bothered with hopeless, ugly, old me. I know that there are so many of you out there today probably thinking and feeling the exact same way. I want you to know YOU ARE NOT ALONE. You are not the only sinner out there. We ALL sin. Satan will make you feel like an isolated case, he will tell you that no one else is as horrible as you and if you let your sin be seen no one will love you or want to be your friend ever again, not even Jesus. But please hear me friends, SATAN IS A BIG FAT UGLY LIAR!!!! He will tell you anything, ANYTHING, to draw you further from God and closer to him.
 "Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throught the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings." 1Peter 5:9
God knows us inside and out. He created you in his image. He knows you will never be perfect but he wants you to come to him, get to know him, persue a personal and intimate relationship with him. When you do that, when you get into his word and get to know him, you will find that he loves and persues imperfect people just like you and me. When you look into the heart of your Saviour, Jesus, you will find acceptance, not judgement; love, not hate; comfort, not rejection; a perfect love that is enough to fill every empty place in your soul and restore every ruined place in your heart. As Renee Swope points out in her book A Confident Heart, "Hold on to this promise and live in the power of its truth: because God's love is perfect, you don't have to be!" That is what I want for all of you, to be able to rest and find comfort in that statement. You do not have to be perfect. You do not have to earn God's love. If we had to earn it or be worthy of it we would all be doomed, we will never be worthy or 'good enough' for God's love by ourselves. But Jesus IS enough. Jesus IS worthy. Jesus has paid the price for YOU, so that WITH him you can come to the Father and recieve his good and perfect love.

I want to leave you with one last bit of scripture. Three of the most powerful verses I have ever read. When I read these lines and really let them sink in, I feel so loved, so cherished, so important to God. These lines make me feel like a weight being lifted off of my shoulders, like chains of bondage being released, the ropes of sin that have bound me being cut away. Through this promise from God I feel fully free to love and be loved by Him.
"You were dead in sins, and your sinful desires were not yet cut away. Then he gave you a share in the very life of Christ, for he forgave all your sins, and blotted out the charges proved against you, the list of his commandments which you had not obeyed. He took this list of sins and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ’s cross. In this way God took away Satan’s power to accuse you of sin, and God openly displayed to the whole world Christ’s triumph at the cross where your sins were all taken away." Colossians 2:13-15 TLB
My prayer for all of you today is that you find freedom in the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. As we go through this week of holiday festivities, gift exchanges, church services, family gatherings... I pray that you find time to allow the true meaning of Christmas, the story of Jesus' birth, life, death, and ressurection really sink in for you. I pray that the truth of his love will sink down deep in to your heart and you will accept that love. Turn away from Satan and his lies, stop allowing him to make you feel bad, ugly, unworthy, unloved, or whatever else he makes you feel. Turn instead TO GOD and let him set you free to be the beautiful, loved, honored, and cherished CHILD OF GOD that you are. Merry Christmas friends!

Casting Crowns New Song!! "All You Ever Wanted" Live 9/12/13

What Mark Hall says at the beginning of this video is SO important... I hope that you all really listen to that part... If you are not in the word, if you are not seeking God and getting to know Him you will make up your own idea of who he is based on failed relationships or "bad" father figures in your life and that is NOT who God is... I have spent the past 20 years with the wrong image of God in my mind. I went through the motions of being baptized when I was young because it was just what you did. You get too close to that "age of accountability" and you better get dunked so that when you're done doing all the "bad stuff" you wanna do you can just say "oh yea, forgive me" and get into Heaven at the very end. I went through my teen years going to church and youth group and every activity they had every time the doors were open and I STILL didn't know who God was, I STILL wasn't in the word learning about Him. In my mind he was this big, judgmental, perfect being who sat up in Heaven shaking his head at what a disappointment I was and he didn't really care about little ole me, I was insignificant and eventually he would give up and walk out on me just like every other man in my life. When I was 17 and lost my baby sister and felt a pull to the ministry I got freaked out, I let Satan whisper in my ear, and I turned and RAN from God as fast as I could. I spent years blaming him for the loss of Chloe, and all the other loved ones I had buried so young. When my cousin died just before our 22 birthdays and my grandfather followed her just 5 months later I heaped that on top of God's "discretions against me". I sat judging HIM and blaming him and accusing him of every injustice and every bad thing that had ever happened to me. I accused him of doing all the same things these earthly men had done to me. In the past 6 months I have come to know who God really is, I have immersed myself in his word with a thirst and hunger to know him like no other feeling I have ever felt. I see now that he has sat patiently waiting on me to stop throwing my little 2 year old tantrum over not getting my way, over life not being "fair", over all the loses and broken hearts of my past  and come to Him to learn who and what he is and what he has to offer. Today I know him for the kind and loving God that he is and I have given him the only thing he ever asked from me... my heart. I have learned that he is NOT who I judged him to be. He is truly awesome and amazing and GOOD. When you read his word you find the bible is FULL to overflowing with PROMISES he has made to us... and guess what... HE. ALWAYS. KEEPS. HIS. WORD. In Philippians 4:6 we are told "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." And that's great, pray about everything and don't worry, right? But go a little further. Read verse 7...
"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
There it is... a promise from God that we ALL need to let sink into our hearts... not our heads. When you take your troubles, your heartache, your trials, you deepest, darkest moments, to God he will give you Peace, which TRANSCENDS ALL UNDERSTANDING. I have wasted so many years DEMANDING answers and understanding to WHY this or that "bad thing" happened to me. God does not owe us any thing, but through his love for us he will always work things for our good. When you turn to him he will give you peace, you don't NEED to understand every thing, HE understands every thing, all you need is to be still and know that he is in control. He's "got" this. Some day we will be in his presence and we will be able to look back on this life and see how all the pieces fit into place. We will be able to see past our individual hurt over certain things to see how it worked in the grand scheme of things and how it worked out for the greater good. That may not comfort any one when they are hurting and stuck in their own small part of things, and that's ok... it's even ok to feel that way and to hurt for your own loss and not really care how it works out for every thing else.... but one day it will all make sense... for now I just pray that those of you who are still as lost as I once was will find the Peace that he promises us. Let him wrap his arms around your soul and your aching heart today and let go of your need to understand and just rest in the peace that IT WILL BE OK.

Worry

God has been beating me over the head with a certain topic this week so I thought maybe I should blog about it so that someone else out there might get as much help from it as I have. The topic is Worry. But first let me start with telling y'all about my week... it's slightly comical actually. It started with Sunday night bedtime stories with my 4 year old. Every night he picks one story book and when it is finished we read a couple pages out of his children's Bible before our bedtime prayers. Well as fate should have it the very last sentence of the last Bible story I read said "don't worry, have faith". The next morning my son woke up happily chirping "have faith, don't worry". As he was dancing around the house I opened my email. I am currently doing an online bible study through Proverbs 31 ministries and what do ya know? This week's topic... worry! So I think 'ok God, I hear you, you want me to stop worrying... got it.' Monday and Tuesday I went through my bible study and my daily devotionals going 'yeah, yeah, don't worry, pray about every, I know that already... now did all the bills get paid? do I have what we need for supper tonight? where is my grocery list? what about that deadline at work?' I sure was NOT listening to what God was trying to say to me. I was blowing Him off... HIM, GOD... goodness when will I ever learn that ignoring God NEVER works!? So this morning I wake up late... again... my kid wouldn't get out of bed... again... Naturally I started in on my usual lecture "Sam, you have GOT to hurry up, brush your teeth, take your medicine, drink your juice, get dressed, Mommy CAN NOT be late again this week!" Then I finally get him wrangled into the car and we take off and my mind is going a million miles a minute. I was thinking about things I needed to get done at work and things that needed done at home and Christmas plans and the list goes on. I tell myself, even know, that I was only 'thinking' about those things when you and I both know I was worrying... one of the things I really excel at! Well since God obviously hadn't gotten my attention earlier in the week he got a little creative today. As it turns out EVERY radio station was full of static this morning. All the way to my son's school, nothing but static! I was getting a bit frustrated. So as I was leaving the school parking lot I said aloud 'God, please let me find just ONE station that doesn't have static, please!' A moment or two later I finally found a station that would come in and it just happened to be a Christian music station. I said a little 'thanks' and happily bee-bopped on down the road. Well about a mile or a little less from my work the music went off and a pre-recorded program came on, I didn't catch the name of the man delivering the sermon, but I bet you can guess what the topic was... yep... worry! And do you know what I did? First I laughed out loud then I said 'I hear you God and I am NOT worrying, I'm fine. I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be with my worrying, so every thing is under control.' At that EXACT moment the man on the radio said "We all worry... now don't deny it, you know you do". My jaw literally dropped and I really did look up and go "seriously?!?" So of course I got back in my car and listened to the rest of the program and I want to share with y'all what I have learned this week.

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" Matthew 6:25-27

What is worry? The word worry comes from an old German word; wurgen. Which means "to strangle". Let's think about that for a minute. Before I turned my life over to Christ I worried way more than I do now. I worried about every thing, all the time. I worried to the point that I would develop stomach ulcers and be physically ill. My worry really was strangling me. I was allowing doubt and worry to creep into my mind and my heart; little by little at first, then more and more until it was consuming every aspect of my life. In the last couple of years as I have been growing closer to God and learning how to really turn my life over to him I have noticed that I worry less than before, but I still worry way too much. There are still days when I worry so much that I let myself go into a total tailspin. I get so anxious and on edge from the worry that I am mean and cranky at home. My poor 4 year old sure doesn't deserve mommy yelling about a few innocent splashes in the bathtub. My mother doesn't deserve me criticizing her for 'forgetting' the coffee at the store again... especially when I am the one who forgot to tell her we were out in the first place. But those are the things that I allow to happen when I have allowed Satan to whisper in my ear all day about what a failure I am for not keeping a cleaner home or giving stricter discipline to my child, or any number of other things.  Some times I spend all day worrying and all it does is ramp up my anxiety and turn me into a very ugly person. It quite successfully strangles my personality and turns me into some one else that I really don't like very much.

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?  So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:28-34


As you read these verses you may be thinking, like I did at first, 'oh yeah that's all well and good but I am an adult, I have responsibilities! I can't just go along not ever worrying about any thing. If I don't worry about the bills who will pay them? If I don't worry about my kids' school projects how will they get done?'  Did you know that of the things we worry about 40% never happen. Another 30% are about unchangeable deeds of the past. 12% is focused on opinions of others, which we have no control over. 10% of our worry is over our personal health, worrying only makes that worse! Only 8% of the things we worry about concern real problems that we can influence. That makes our worry seem a mite silly, doesn't it? I feel especially silly when I remember that I have an all-mighty God who tells me not to worry at all! He provides every thing for us. He even provides an alternative to our worry! Philippians 4:6 tells us "Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything". We don't have to worry ourselves into an early grave! We can pray about the things we worry over. We can pray about our responsibilities. We can pray about EVERY thing!
1Peter 5:7 says, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you". How amazing is that?! We have a wonderful and loving father who WANTS us to come to him with our problems. He wants to know what we worry about. He WANTS to help us! You can lay all of your worries at the foot of the cross and leave them there and our loving Father will help you. If you take time to be still and listen I assure you that He will provide an answer to your worries and anxieties. He wants to do that for you... will you let Him?

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Jesus tells us that he wants to help you carry your worries and responsibilities. In my studies I discovered this verse in Matthew 11 and decided to dig a little deeper. When I did that I had an "ah ha" moment. A 'yoke' in Biblical terms is a double harness for two animals to pull together. Often, one harness was larger and meant for the stronger, more experience animal, while the smaller was used for the animal that was being trained. It fills me with such joy and comfort to know that I love and worship a God who values me so very much that he invites me to harness myself up next to him and allow him to pull the heaviest part of the load and teach me his ways so that I may handle more and more as I grow in my faith. I hope that this has helped someone out there reading it. I hope that it gives you comfort and hope and helps you to let go of some of your anxieties today. Let's pray for each other that we all might learn to worry just a little less in the days to come.