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!