god

Life Song

studio

I once heard Jamie Foxx in an interview say something similar, if not repeating, what Steve Maraboli stated, “God is the composer; you are the song.” Frankly, I love that quote because there is so much in there. When you think of a composer, you think of one with a vision, one with a purpose. A composer starts off with a blank page and begins to write out the song of your life: all the notes and bass lines, the beats the breaks, the sharps and the flats. however sometimes when the song is being played, the music just kind of goes off the beaten path and before you realize it, there are broken chords and wrong notes, sometimes that weren’t even supposed to be a part of the original song. Still, any great composer can take those broken chords and turn those wrong notes into a beautiful piece, into a song that can never again be duplicated. “Life is a song; love your lyrics.”

When you think about a piano, there are white keys and black keys, so let’s say that the white keys are the good days or the more pleasant experiences, and the black keys are the less favorable ones. I love how someone else put it, “as you go through your life’s journey, remember the black keys make music too.” With all that said, I want to encourage you that your life is a beautiful song, full of white notes, and like the piano, more white than black. colorStill, however many you have, let your life’s music be glorious and resonate to those that would listen to your music. God’s song for you is far greater than you can imagine. Even though, sometime we want to be the composer and begin to add notes and lines and or even delete chords that were already written. This makes me love God all the more because He takes them and make ugly beautiful. So if you feel that you have hit a sour note in your life or things are just not as graceful as you would hope, remember that God is the Master Composer and He doesn’t make mistakes and knows how each part of your story creates a wonder that the world is waiting to see and hear. Trust God with every stroke of the key, because He had a purpose when He wrote your life song; He knew who it was going to reach, whose heart it would touch, and what life it would effect.

Know the Composer, know your music, for life is a song and God is the composer. Let the music of your heart and soul impact the world.

Power of Music

This post will not be the normal length. This time around, my post is dedicated to music, which I feel is one of the world’s most powerful forces. Thus, these videos are here to encourage whoever chooses to watch. They are great songs, both secular and sacred, that helped me, so I know will help you, even in the least bit, to recognize that you are here on purpose.

Leah Smith – Beautifully Made → (Psalm 139)

India Arie – Beautiful

Tammy Trent – At the Foot of the Cross → (Isaiah 63)

Weapons with a Purpose: Fight

Two Edged Sword

So in working with the youth band, I ended up doing a series on the weapons we have to fight the enemy that are sure to work: his blood, your testimony, his word, and your praise. These four have the ability to do serious damage to the schemes of the enemy.

His Blood: Revelation 12:11 tells the story of the fall of Lucifer. He was kicked out of heaven, fell on Earth and has brought destruction ever since. However, in this verse we learn that we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. First and foremost, we must realize the power of the blood. It saved us and now protects us from the enemy’s schemes. Because of the blood, we are no longer guilty in front of God. This passage calls Satan the accuser; he regularly goes to Heaven and questions the things we do, trying to convince God that we are not His. But then God looks at us, but the blood of our defender makes us not guilty; we are free from the bondage of sin. So live in victory, knowing that you may mess up, but we are God’s children forever and He will never leave us. Nothing can separate us from His love.

Your Testimony: Revelation also mentions another weapon that defeats the enemy – our testimony. I often come across people that are reluctant to share their testimony, because they are ashamed, or they feel that it is insignificant. However, I am here to tell you that sharing your testimony of how God has delivered you or sustained you or kept you is a mighty way of defeating the enemy. When you walk and talk, and embrace the power of God and what He has done in your life, you break the chains of Satan, not only you, but someone else can be encouraged just by hearing what God has done for you. Don’t be afraid of your testimony.

His Word: Ephesians 6:17 specifically calls His Word the sword in the armor of God. The greatest example of this, is Jesus himself. He conquered Satan when he was tempted in the wilderness (Luke 4). Each time Satan tried to make him fall, Jesus responded “it is written,” and eventually the Devil left. Satan is the father of lies so when he comes for us, even as an angel of light, when we know and understand the Word for ourselves, that is the fail proof way to make the Devil flee.

Your Praise: 2 Chronicles 20:12, 18-20 tells the story of King Jehosophat. The Israelites were facing and army they could not defeat, nor did they have a clue as to what to do. Thus Jehosophat went to God and simply worshipped God and commanded the people to do the same. During their worship, God himself fought for them and they were victorious against their enemies. The same goes for us. Many times there are obstacles and things in our lives that are too big for us to handle. But, the sure way to confuse the enemy is to go to God and worship Him in the midst. Joshua also did so in Jericho; they praised God and the walls came tumbling down. So the encouragement is to use a great weapon that is often times down played or overlooked: praise. Praise and worship is so critical, because it’s a defense mechanism, and it gives us the power to stop the giants and enemy in their tracks.

Know that greater is He who is in you than He that is in the world (1 John 4:4), and if you forget, you still have these four weapons to literally destroy your baddest enemy, Satan and his demons. Be encouraged and fight. Satan knows God has an amazing purpose for you and wants to hinder and destroy it every opportunity he gets. Fight. We have the victory.

Punctuation w/ Purpose

Something I heard some years ago. Many times in life we wait for God to start our new chapter. However, when you end a chapter can’t end it with a comma. A comma doesn’t end a sentence. It pauses a phrase before continuing the thought. In the same manner, comma is telling God that you are going to hold on to what He told you to let go or end, in order to begin a next new chapter of your life. That may be a variety of many things: relationship, job, house, money, comfort ability, etc. It’s pretty much telling God He you don’t trust His authorship of your life. So it’s like you hang on just in case…But you won’t get to the new chapter, because you’re stuck in the old.

punctuation717548When you end it with a period, however, or even a question mark (you may not have the slightest clue what’s finna happen next), you allow God to continue the story, fulfilling your purpose. A period, says to God that you trust Him enough to leave behind what you know, many cases for long periods of time, many pages. Ending with a period, letting go that is, give God the green light to take you to new places and keeps the story in progression. Thus, it doesn’t drag out and you stay in or get in unnecessary mess that wasn’t even a part of the original story…

Desire

So yesterday, I went to church and the message was on the story of the temptation of Jesus (Luke 4). I loved most how Jesus went through this to prove his humanity, and desiring to show us that we can live victoriously, even in the face of dire trials and temptation. However, the catch is being full of the Spirit. Even as Christians, we still go through things, we still are put in adverse situations, even though it may not be out fault. Yet, this story proves that we can be conquerors.

The particular temptation we looked at in the sermon yesterday, was the first, the personal temptation, of Jesus in the wilderness. Satan had probed Jesus to turn the stone into bread, being as though Jesus was hungry from not eating 40 days. Still, Jesus said no and replied “it is written…” The sin in this situation wasn’t turning stone into bread; he hadn’t eaten in so long and it can be assumed he desired to eat. However, being in a close relationship was God, he knew it was not God’s timing, and blatantly going against God’s timing is the sin. Our flesh is a monster, still, our God is greater and we can fight the temptation of self, of the flesh, no matter how practical the temptation may be, and lets be honest sometimes we want it bad, real bad…but just as Jesus was in the wilderness, we are more than conquerors (Rom 8:37).

Furthermore, it was a great reminder to me that life is full of desires and things we want, and they aren’t all bad or sinful. However, we have to understand that God has a time for everything. It gets hard to wait, especially when you have your mind made up and planned the who, what, when, where, and how. Still, as it is written, we may have our own plans, but God orders our steps and it is His purpose that will prevail and it will always be greater than expected  (Prov 16:9, 19:21). He knows the desires of our hearts, and will give them to us (Ps 37:4). Yet, we must delight in Him and His will first, so that we can know His voice when the answer is yes, no, or wait. Your desire may in fact be good, but I pose the question, is the timing bad? That’s answer can only come from God Himself, so don’t get discouraged. He wants to bless you, and truth be told, He already has. Talk to Him…What is He saying…to you?…