Not Your Mistakes

One of the greatest lies of the world is that you are what you do. This sentiment is expressed in hundreds of arguments, such as “well, I’m a good person, so I’ll get to heaven,” or, “he cheated on her, so karma will get him,” or even in seemingly innocuous phrases like, “once a thief, always a thief.”

But the Bible tells us that what you do is merely a product of who you are, of how you think, of where your heart is. Sin comes from a broken heart that is focused on selfish pleasures. Goodness comes from a heart that is the home of Jesus Christ. But another thing the Bible tells us is that, when you are saved from your past, you are saved into a new being, one that is defined not by who you are, but by the God who has claimed you.

I briefly touched on this topic last week with Casting Crowns’ “Who am I,” but I wanted to expand on the idea of God’s claim on us and how a life after that moment can look from Tenth Avenue North’s “You Are More.”

There's a girl in the corner
With tear stains on her eyes
From the places she's wandered
And the shame she can't hide

She says, how did I get here?
I'm not who I once was.
And I'm crippled by the fear
That I've fallen too far to love

Here are some thoughts that, personally, I’ve had before. And I think many people probably have thought some of these things. Constantly, I think back to choices I made that I would like to have again to change who I am now. I can pinpoint the day and the time that caused me problems for ten years and changed who I was, and who I became to be. And I think many people feel this way, and the fear that comes from these thoughts can be incredibly crippling when you try to move forward.

Sometimes, it feels like you’ve messed up one too many times. And I actually think that’s something we don’t discuss a lot in the Christian community, especially if you grew up in church. We have a problem of trying to tackle actions and past choices but not actually discussing and confronting the issues that are from the heart and the mind. And pardon me for saying it, but that’s kind of pharasaical.

You are more than the choices that you've made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You've been remade

Two things I love about this: it covers the past mistakes and the current problems that are created. For believers, who you are is not found by adding up every choice you’ve ever made. You are not your thoughts and your actions combined. You are not defined by your sins or your good works. And you are most certainly not defined by the sinful thoughts and actions you still struggle with. As a follower of Christ, you have been spiritually and mentally remade, formed into something new.

Well she tries to believe it
That she's been given new life
But she can't shake the feeling
That it's not true tonight

And here’s where we get into the practical application of this song and the message I’m bringing tangentially through it. Even when you know you’ve been given a new life. Even when you know that God has saved you and you know the results of that, sometimes, you still doubt. Maybe you don’t doubt God, but you doubt that you’re doing the right things, that you’re thinking the right way.

And here’s the important thing: these things don’t just magically go away when you get saved. The process of sanctification, of being made like Jesus, isn’t immediate. It takes time for you to be fully transformed, some people take longer than others. And these doubts will always be present. The heart is misleading and untrustworthy, so of course it will occasionally lead you astray, and no amount of knowing you’ve been remade can combat that sometimes.

She knows all the answers
And she's rehearsed all the lines
And so she'll try to do better
But then she's too weak to try 

Sometimes, it’s just not enough to know the words and actions. I can speak to that from experience. This idea that salvation comes from effort is not new, but it’s so close to how Christians are supposed to live that it seems like it’s real. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in, “well, if I just knew more of the Bible,” or, “if I just didn’t give into sin that one time, then God would help me more, then God would save me from it.” But you’re too weak, I’m too weak, we’re all too weak to do these things, so we are trapped by our lying heart into thinking we’ll never be okay. 

'Cause this is not about what you've done,
But what's been done for you.
This is not about where you've been,
But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel,
But what He felt to forgive you,
And what He felt to make you loved

But here’s the thing: there’s only one thing you need to know, and it’s not the Bible by memory, it’s not the mistakes you’ve made, it’s not how you’re going to do better in the future. The one thing you need to know is what’s been done for you. The one thing you need to understand is that it’s not about feelings or thoughts, it’s about the one action that Jesus Christ made, and that no matter what, once you’ve chosen to believe in Him and what He did, you are claimed by Him and nothing can change that. No mistakes, no thoughts, no feelings. Nothing. Take refuge in that.

In a sense, who you are is not about you at all. Who you are is all about God and how He loves you enough that He would sacrifice His son, over and over and over again if that was what it took, so that He could say, “You are mine.”

Now, here’s a call to action for the Christian community out there. Let’s stop doing the things that cause people to think this way. Let’s stop making our thoughts and actions and gossip about who did what and what happened from that (let’s just stop gossiping anyway). Let’s stop thinking that once someone confesses belief in Jesus that everything’s perfectly fine for them.

Let’s start leading people to grow closer to Christ. Let’s start encouraging those who make mistakes. Let’s lean on the gospel and not on our feelings of Jesus. Let’s aid those who are lost in their thoughts and emotions and don’t know where to go. Let’s tackle the heart and the mind, not the actions. Let’s dive deeper into how we can help others rather than stick to the surface because we feel like it’s not our problem.

When Jesus died, He didn’t just wipe away the actions of sin. He changed who we are and how we thought and felt. He didn’t stick to the surface and do an incomplete job. He fully and thoroughly cleaned us and made us whole. We’re supposed to follow the example of Christ, so let’s follow this example first.

What Christian Means

Just this last weekend I was introduced to Christian rapper Nathan Feuerstein, otherwise known as NF, by my little brother. I’ve only heard a few of his songs thus far, but I’ve found quite a lot of valuable information in them to mine, especially in “Therapy Session,” which I want to talk about today.

I want to discuss a few ideas before I get into the lyrics and the themes in this song. The first is the meaning behind music. A lot of times, I think people forget that music is a language—it is meant to convey things: feelings, thoughts, experiences, dreams, life. It’s not just entertainment, and it’s usually not single-minded in purpose. One song can portray a variety of things when you analyze it as you should. My point in this is that you shouldn’t dismiss music just because it’s not something you enjoy listening to.

It’s something we, meaning the Christian community (and others) do far too often. The older generation typically doesn’t like contemporary music during worship because they prefer the style of hymns. The younger generation typically doesn’t like hymns because they’re too slow and boring, or they’re hard to sing during worship, or whatever. And, to be honest, the argument between the two groups has left worship music in kind of a dark place of extremely simplified lyrics sung loudly to appease both.

I say all this because I don’t want anyone dismissing the message from music like this because it’s “not their style” or because NF doesn’t necessarily define himself as a Christian rapper and his music isn’t always the prettiest in terms of sound. Therapy session is actually rather dark at surface level. But when you go deeper, there’s a ton of God-given wisdom behind the words.

So, into the lyrics.

This music is more than you think
Don't book me for just entertainment, it's entertaining
Hearing these parents, they telling their kids
My music is violent, you gotta be kidding me
I guess that your definition of violence and mine
Is something that we look at differently

These verses go back to the topic discussed earlier and breach into the next. A lot of times, we Christians have an incredibly bad habit of railing harshly against things that don’t look, smell, taste, feel, and sound Christian right off the bat. Rap is a prime example in and of itself. Wider sects of the Christian community hate it because sometimes it sounds angry or too loud, and the words aren’t straight from Bible verses. Heavy metal is another genre that tends to get the stink eye from us because of similar reasons.

But this causes a ton of problems when the rest of the world sees it. Trust me when I say that we often have this reputation as practitioners of “cancel culture.” If you don’t know what that is, it’s the name behind the practice of blacklisting something because it doesn’t fit your idea of “good,” or because it made a mistake and said or did something “wrong.” I’m going to avoid getting technically political here, but just go search up some news articles about “Christians boycotting companies,” and just see what’s pulled up.

I won’t deny that there are certainly groups and companies we shouldn’t give our business to, but we exercise the “that’s satanic” thing way too much. We’re talking about those who don’t allow their kids to read Harry Potter because it has witches and magic in it or Percy Jackson because it’s about Greek mythology. In all honesty, Christians are becoming rather like the Pharisees in practice, disallowing things like video games, certain books, movies, songs, bands, etc.

Want me to smile, you want me to laugh
You want me to walk in the stage with a smile on my face
When I'm mad and put on a mask, for real though
I mean, what you expect from me?

Another thing we do far too often as Christians is attempt to come off as perfect. We sugarcoat ideas, we put on masks to hide our true identities and feelings when we go to church on Sundays, we live double lives because we think that’s what it means to be Christians. But I think the rest of the world actually has it right when it comes to talking about how you feel.

It’s okay to be real with your emotions and thoughts. It’s okay to admit that sometimes you doubt God. It’s okay to acknowledge how hard it is to love how Christ loves. It’s okay to admit your struggles. And it’s high past time we started making the body of Christ a safe place to be imperfect humans.

I'm taking pictures with thousands of people
But honestly, I feel like nobody knows me
I'm trying to deal with depression
I'm trying to deal with the pressure

How many people do you actually know? How many actually know you? Who can you genuinely say you are vulnerable with? That’s what’s being expressed here. How many times do you walk out of church on Sunday, talk to some people on the way out to your car, and then not speak to them again until the same time next week? Are you connecting? Are they? It’s so superficial, and most certainly it is not what God wanted for us when he declared that we should meet together and fellowship.

How many Christians deal with depression and anxiety but no one in the church knows? No one is there to help them? It goes back to some of my earlier points—we’re too willing to judge and not willing enough to learn. Personally, I fall victim to not connecting with others well. I have anxiety—talking about myself and being vulnerable is akin to jumping out of an airplane in my head, but these are the things that we must do better, even if it’s difficult, or else we risk failing at the mission God has for us.

I ain't gon' walk on these stages in front of these people
And act like I live my life perfectly
That doesn't work for me
Christian is not the definition of what perfect means

I love that last line more than any other line in this song for a number of reasons. Being Christian does not mean to be perfect. It means to follow the only one who lived a life of perfection. We strive for perfection knowing we will never reach it. The problem is that we pretend to be perfect far too much.

I’ve said this more times than I care to count at this point, but I’ll say it again. I honestly believe that most nonbelievers have no problem with God. If they knew Him, they’d love Him. They all have a problem with us. Because we do an absolutely miserable job of showing them who He is. Nonbelievers don’t hate God; they hate us. We’re judgmental and prudes and snobby and rude. We hate and despise them and then act like we’re better than them because we’re “saved.” They don’t want anything to do with that, and I don’t blame them.

What you probably don’t know, unless you’ve heard this song before, is that pretty much the entire song is NF venting his thoughts and emotions at fellow Christians. Why? Because, not only has he gotten death threats for his music, but someone, and I can almost guarantee it was a “Christian” threatened to slaughter his entire family. Why? Because he didn’t fit their idea of being saved.

That has to stop. NF has likely done more to spread the kingdom of God by the age of 29 than many Christians will manage in an entire lifetime. Now, I’m not trying to be high and mighty about this. This message applies to me, too, as all of my blog posts do. But it needed to be said, and it needs to be said over and over and over again until we get it and start changing how we live.

Listen to Therapy Session on Spotify. NF · Song · 2016.

No Good Alone

In my blog post Bible study on Ecclesiastes, I mentioned the song, “It’s No Good to be Alone” by Brandon Heath along with the theme of the necessity of companionship for us. Today, I’m doubling down on that and bringing in the song, “No Man is an Island” by Tenth Avenue North to talk about some good things that can be done with companions that you can’t find when you’re throwing others to the wayside to chase down a dream.

Biblically, I think it’s pretty clear that we need socialization. We need intimate, vulnerable, human connection to survive and thrive on this Earth. Whether that is through close friendships or a spouse, it is, quite simply, necessary to our existence, our nature.

The songs I’m talking about today I won’t spend too much time going in-depth into the lyrics because they’re pretty straightforward, and I explained a lot of it in Friday’s post. But these songs are more recommendations that you can have on hand to listen to whenever you feel overwhelmed. Hopefully, they’ll remind you that you need people you can count on so you aren’t alone.

One of my favorite verses from “It’s No Good to be Alone” comes after the first chorus.

It's been a little while, you've been outta the scene
Spending all your time chasing down a dream
Takes a lifetime, takes a lifetime
It's a short life, it's a short life

This is, personally, one of the things I struggle with a lot. When I was in middle and high school, I would talk to my friends every day. It wasn’t difficult, but when we all split off to college, I spoke to them maybe once a semester. We were all so busy that we couldn’t even bother with each other for 90 percent of our year. Thankfully, we’ve all been good friends since elementary school and don’t have any problem starting back where we left off, but it’s important to not forget connections like that.

One of the things I think we, as Christians, tend to forget is that life is short, and we don’t have to live it all business-like. The things we will accomplish, either for ourselves or for God, will take our entire lives to achieve. You can’t, and shouldn’t, rush it, and mentally, you can’t handle the strain of dedicating yourself solely to it. Sometimes, we have to let loose and live, experience life with our friends. To me, that’s why part of the opening of this song hits so hard.

We're leaving you a message on your telephone
Everybody's wondering what you're doing home
Yeah, we're starting and you're missing the party
Can you hear it playing your favorite song
Everybody's singing but something's wrong
'Cause you're missing, 'cause you're missing

Just as much as your friends should be a vital part of your life, you are likely a vital part of someone else’s life. Sometimes, you need to give up on the extra hours of work on the weekend and spend some time with people who love you. Otherwise, those connections die, and speaking from experience, it really sucks when you let them go.

Tenth Avenue North’s song, on the other hand, speaks about the things friends can do rather than the necessity of having them. I like “No Man is an Island” because it’s coming from the perspective of a friend reaching out to another rather than the other way around.

I believe the best way to have good friends is to be a good friend, a lot like the adage, “You can’t hate someone who is always nice to you.” You can’t have bad friends if you’re a good friend. Barring an incredible lack of empathy in a person, a bad friend won’t be able to put up with the guilt of being a bad friend to a good friend. They’ll either change to be better or leave the friendship entirely.

But the problem with this is that becoming good friends requires vulnerability. It’s a hard thing to get past.

I see fear in your eyes, there's no safety here
Oh, my friend, let me in, I will share your tears

This is a commonly experienced thought, I believe. Often, we lack the courage to break through the fear of opening up to someone because of potential judgment. But being a good friend is showing empathy and understanding, and then being there for the person who shows that vulnerability, whether that means to be a shoulder to cry on or someone to help them get through the issues.

I wish you never thought you had to go,
Wish you never thought you had to leave!
Together we can lift each other up,
We can build a shelter for the weak!

More biblical truth, which is also why I like Tenth Avenue North so much. A good friend provides a human version of what God provides. It’ll be imperfect, but it’ll help so much for your friends to know that you are a safe place, a shelter, for them to come to and weather the storms of life. But one of the best things about the lyrics above is that you can lift each other up. When one part of a friendship goes down, the other can lift them up in prayer, or lead them to a Biblical answer to the trouble.

I think one of the biggest struggles we feel when attempting to actively find companionship is the belief that no one will ever see us for who we are inside, that no one will find us. And that if they ever do, they won’t understand us or love us in that identity. But here’s the thing, as the song says, we can be found. God is the perfect seeker and He can always find us, but even among other people, there are those who will see you for you and love you.

Even though, as humans, our love is finite because we are not God, we love because He first loved us, and that includes loving in the same ways He loves us.

No man is an island, we can be found
No man is an island, let your guard down!

Listen to No Man Is an Island on Spotify. Tenth Avenue North · Song · 2014.

Listen to It's No Good To Be Alone on Spotify. Brandon Heath · Song · 2011.

Tell the Gospel

You know, there are a lot of lost people out there, wandering around with pain and suffering, but they don’t know where to go to heal. Some don’t even know there’s a chance to heal. I’ve not written about this as much as I probably should have, but now’s the time. Somebody has to tell them about the one who loves them enough to heal their suffering, and to be honest, we don’t do it enough.

One of the most striking lines in the song “Somebody Tell Them” by City Harbor is the fourth. Here it is in context:

There's a child on the subway
His story is written on his face
And the pain he's felt, is enough to fill a lifetime
But he doesn't know any other way

If there is nothing else that could motivate you to share the gospel, this line right here should be plenty. Clearly, something horrible has happened in this child’s life for it to be so visible, but the last line makes this situation even worse.

Most children are happy, joyful—no matter what happens in the world around them, it’s difficult to steal a child’s sense of wonder about the world. The hypothetical child—who is all too real in many situations around the world—has had his joy stolen so thoroughly that all he knows is pain and loss and suffering. He literally does not know anything about the world other than “it hurts.”

I hope you understand how saddening that is. I hope you understand that it shouldn’t be that way. I hope you understand that because you hold the key to the door that can fix it, as the next few lines are about.

Somebody tell him that the lost are saved
Somebody tell him that his debt's been paid
And let him know, love is calling out his name
Somebody tell him, he's a child of the king
And there is an end to this suffering
And hope that never fades, through grace that's made a way
Somebody tell him, somebody tell him now.

It’s your job to step in and comfort those people, especially children. I could make the metaphor about all of us being children who are lost without the Father, but I think it’s fairly clear that such is the case. So, as believers, it’s our job to share the love of Christ.

There’s another point to make in this situation, too. Notice the setting the opening lines take place in: the subway, and the last line: “Somebody tell him now.” There’s a time crunch here. You only have so much time to share the gospel with those you meet. Sometimes, people are in our lives for the entirety of it, and sometimes, they are only there for but a few brief moments, but you impact everyone you ever meet, no matter how long you spend in their presence. It’s your job to make that impact a good one.

I’ve said before that love is sacrifice, but it’s time to reiterate that. Sometimes, love’s sacrifice is death on a cross to save all people who choose to accept the gift. But sometimes, love’s sacrifice isn’t that large. Sometimes, love is just sacrificing your comfort in exchange for a little bit of awkwardness as you speak to a stranger who looks like they’ve been going through a mess. It’s just a little bit of time and a little bit of energy to listen and empathize with someone who’s hurting. It’s just telling the actions of someone who loves them endlessly.

I’m just going to end this with more lyrics from this song, because, truthfully, I don’t think I could write anything better:

Too many times we've all held back
The truth from those put in our path
So let us be the voice of love to them.

What God Wants

If anyone else is like me, you’ll have struggled with God in an attempt to rationalize doing what you want rather than what He wants, or at least trying to figure out every last move He has set up for you. Personally, I hate not knowing what’s going to happen to me on any given day. I prefer a structured environment with no surprises so I can mentally prepare for what’s ahead.

Well, this mindset is what the song “What You Want” by Tenth Avenue North tackles. Let’s just jump into this with the opening lyrics.

Everyday I've been feeling the pressure
I always gotta know the plan
It's been a weight that I've tried to shoulder
I thought I could, but I can’t

Seriously think hard about how annoying and stressful it is to plan even the smallest things. Take a party, for instance. You have to find a place, get the food, arrange for drinks, invite all the people, make sure everyone knows where it’s at, arrange entertainment, arrange a cleanup, and deal with what’s leftover. There are hundreds of contingencies you have to be ready for, and that’s a lot of pressure for a party.

How much more do you have to think of when you try to plan out your life? There are things you’re going to have to react to that you would never even be able to consider at the start. Where there are hundreds of contingencies you might need to plan for something small, there are hundreds of thousands, or even millions, you have to look out for when you’re planning something big. And before you even start thinking you can, let me tell you that you aren’t capable of thinking of everything. None of us are.

When you think about it, and the next set of lyrics convey this, we’re wired for someone else to take control of all that, someone with an infinitely powerful mind who can see everything we’ll ever have to face.

And I'm so tired
Of chasing dreams
When I am wired to let you lead

About those first two lines, I want to say that there’s nothing wrong with chasing your dreams. Many desires are placed on our hearts by God to be fulfilled, but I qualify it with this: don’t let your dreams be set completely in stone. Be ready, if God wants you to do something different, to follow after His plan instead.

You're changing my heart
To want what you want
To love how you love
And that is enough
There's no greater plan that I need to know
You only ask me to follow

When we choose to follow God, there is a renewal by the Holy Spirit, and it should change our hearts to want what God wants and to love like God loves so that we become more like Him. And really, is there anything we need to do that is more than to love how He loves? I don’t think so. I say if you truly exemplify God’s love, you’ll never go wrong. Other people might do wrong to you, but you can never do any wrong by just loving people the way God loves us.

I’ve seen so many examples of those last two lines in the Bible, wherein people called by God didn’t know the outcome of their actions but did as God asked anyway, and they were rewarded greatly because of it. One of the best examples I know of is with Abraham and Isaac. Abraham had no idea what would happen when he went up to sacrifice his son, but because he did what the Lord asked him to, not only did he strengthen his faith in God, but he also was blessed beyond measure and from him came millions of descendants. What was a heavy burden in sacrificing his son became a very light one by the end of it.

Oh, there's freedom in this surrender
I feel myself come alive
And the burden feels like a feather
When I let my agenda die

it’s incredibly freeing when you just listen to God. It takes all of your energy to try and fight against him, as Jonah found out, and it inevitably fails. But when you just follow God’s will, as Abraham did, the burden you’re granted is like a feather. At the end of the day, Abraham’s burden was to, basically, do nothing. His only job was having descendants, and he’d already started that.

Basically, what this all boils down to is that it’s so much easier to just let go and follow the plan God has already written than it is to try to throw away his plan and make your own. When you want what God wants, everything becomes so much easier.

Listen to What You Want on Spotify. Tenth Avenue North · Song · 2016.

Where Healing Begins

The song “Healing Begins” by Tenth Avenue North has one of my favorite lyrics in all of Contemporary Christian music because it holds so much wisdom within it, and I need to share it.

In fact, this whole song is full of amazing wisdom, and I’m going to use it to lend a helping hand to an argument I’ve wanted to make for a couple of days now, which regards how to speak to those who are not saved and living in sin.

We often say, “Love the sinner. Hate the sin.” And I think we’re all on board with that. But I want to take that a step farther: you don’t express your hate of the sin to people who don’t care about your opinions on what is sin and what isn’t.

Why? Because as far as they’re concerned, their beliefs say they’re doing nothing wrong. At that point, your job is only to love them, not point out how much you hate what they do. You have to love them to the gospel so they can see Jesus’s love from the cross, and from there, they can work on changing themselves if they choose to accept Jesus’s sacrifice and worship Him as Lord.

This is a big topic, and I’m not going to do the whole thing justice, but this is a short example of what I mean and how it works. Foul language is wrong. The Bible says, “No foul language is to come from your mouth,” in Ephesians 4:29. But that’s a belief that Christians hold, not a belief that the rest of the world holds. Therefore, it’s not something that can or should be fixed until after someone becomes a believer.

See, our job is to get nonbelievers to the cross so they can accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Then the Lord works on their hearts to change their behavior. It’s something that must happen within them first before you or anyone else can help them.

But back to my favorite lyrics ever, which are these:

So you thought you had to keep this up
All the work that you do
So we think that you're good
And you can't believe it's not enough
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside

These six lines can encompass so many different things. Whether you’re talking about faith through works or working and living like a super Christian on the outside when you know your heart isn’t in it, these lyrics are so broad, yet so specific, they can be applied to any situation. But the key point is the separation between you and others.

The last two lines of the first stanza are flawless, in my opinion, and this comes from someone who used to put up his own walls like these. See, while we think the walls we’re building up keep people from getting too close and seeing the darkness in our hearts, it actually just keeps us locked in. Others can see right through the glass separating us to see us suffering in our own hurt.

The walls don’t keep others or God out. They just keep you in; they keep you from experiencing the freedom that comes with letting go of yourself. They keep you from receiving help from others because though people can see through the glass to your suffering, they can’t get through it to help ease your pain and share your burdens, as Christians are called to do.

But, as the next stanza describes, when you let your walls fall down, people will be there to help you, and you’ll experience freedom.

The chorus is pretty great, too.

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Healing begins when you let your walls fall down so the light can come to the dark and clear it out. This is quite literally one of the best metaphors for salvation I have ever seen. Sin is darkness and in us. Jesus is light and outside of us. We block him out by thinking we’re good enough on our own and building up walls with our own works. But when we break those walls down, the light is able to reach us and begin clearing out the sin, the darkness, within us. The only thing stopping Jesus from reaching us is us letting Him in.

And all that happens inside of you. It’s a change of heart and mind, not just actions. Because when you just try to change your actions instead of your heart and mind, you get the next few lines.

Afraid to let your secrets out
Everything that you hide
Can come crashing through the door now
But too scared to face all your fear
So you hide but you find
That the shame won't disappear

We’re often afraid to confront that which we know is wrong. We want to keep it a secret from God, so we hide it, but that leads to shame, which further leads us to separation from God. And, this leads you right back to building up walls to keeping God out. You have to literally come to where you’re broken with God and let Him cover the sin.

Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don't fight
This coming light
Let this blood come cover us
His blood can cover us

His blood is capable of covering the wrongs inside of you. His light is capable of rooting out the darkness. His grace easily defeats your sins and mistakes. So let your walls down, reach inside yourself, and let God confront your problems with you so healing can begin.

Listen to Healing Begins on Spotify. Tenth Avenue North · Song · 2010.

Each Day Anew

Insofar as sin, nobody’s keeping score of your wrongdoing. God doesn’t hold a record of your wrongs over your head when it comes to your salvation. In fact, the Bible says that once you repent of your sins and ask Him for forgiveness, He removes your sin as far as the east is from the west. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” That’s Psalm 103:12.

I don’t remember where I heard it, but I’m going to reiterate it because I hadn’t thought of it this way before someone else said it. That Psalm is really cool because east and west are the only directions that never touch, by definition. If you travel north, you can, and will, at some point reach a place where you will no longer be going north, but south. If you travel south, you will end up going north once you reach a certain spot in Antarctica. But east and west don’t work that way. If you flew across the Atlantic Ocean from the east coast of the U.S. all the way across Europe, Asia, and back to North America, you would always be traveling east. Even once you passed the spot you started, you’d still be going east.

The metaphysical points labeled “east” and “west” never touch. They actually become increasingly distant as time goes on. It’s kind of like the expansion of the universe. One edge of the universe continues expanding while the opposite does the same. Those two “edges” of the universe are constantly growing farther apart.

Mathematically, it’s like infinity and negative infinity. The points of these numbers aren’t fixed. They’re ever-increasing and constantly creating a wider gap between the two of them. It’s kind of abstract, but incredibly cool when you really think about it.

Last Monday, I wrote about shame along with Dan Bremmes’s “Get up Again.” Today, I’m talking about moving past the sin involved in shame with Matthew West’s “Day One.”

These two songs have similar themes, though I particularly love the idea behind the phrase “day one.” Day one is a moniker for a new beginning. A fresh start. A first step. It’s acting as if the things that came before no longer exist, and your journey of life only begins on that day.

So, let’s talk about it. The song opens with the sentiment of stepping out of the past:

Well, I wish I had a short term memory
Wish the only thing my eyes could see
Was the future burning bright right in front of me
But I can't stop looking back

Sometimes, it’s easier to remember particularly bad memories because of the emotions attached to them. Personally, I can remember almost every single time I embarrassed myself throughout my life because the memories are burning with the shame and embarrassment I felt at the time. Our brains store and recall information far more easily when that information is supercharged with emotion. That’s what the opening lines of the song mean. It’s hard to forget those things, even when there is so much good to look forward to.

Things would be far easier if we were perfect and never messed up, but we can’t hold on to that image, and we end up wishing and praying for God to just remove our imperfections, as the next stanza of the song says. But I’m here to tell you, in case you didn’t know, that such a thing will not happen in this life. God will not remove your imperfections while you’re still on Earth. And that’s where the lead into the chorus comes in:

I wish I wasn't wishing anymore
Wish I could remember that nobody's keeping score
I'm tired of throwing pennies in a well
I gotta do something
Here goes nothin’

It’s time to stop wishing and praying for things to change when you aren’t doing anything about it yourself. Like I said last week, we wallow in shame and avoid coming to God a lot out of that shame, and it stops us from doing what we need to do for the kingdom. You have to do something. You have to get up and change yourself.

See my hourglass is upside down
My someday soon is here and now
The clock is tickin'
And I'm so sick and tired of missing out

I love the imagery of these lines. There’s so much in these four lines that I won’t be able to talk deeply about all of it without making this about 4,000 words longer than it should be. This is a call to action. It’s saying not to let your sand sit at the bottom of the hourglass as if time isn’t ticking by. Turn the thing up and get your own timer going. See, you’ve only got so much time on Earth, whether you’re measuring it or not (as in the third line) so you’d better start measuring it.

The second line expresses the same sentiment as Matthew West’s “Do Something.” You keep saying you’re going to do it tomorrow? Soon? It won’t happen. Make your tomorrow a today. Make your soon a right now. Otherwise, it’ll never come. Don’t miss out on the things God has for you because you won’t make today Day One.

Every morning, mercy’s new, so start over and march on to the beat of a new drum. Today could be day one of the rest and best of your life if you’re willing to step out on the grace of the amazingly forgiving God we have who is so merciful He is willing to let you start each day anew. He is willing to essentially forget every wrong you have ever done so that, to Him, you committed no wrongs at all.

Don’t sit there wishing that you didn’t do those things you did. Get up and live like those things didn’t happen.

Get up Again

I’m choosing to talk about the themes in this song, “Up Again” by Dan Bremmes, now because of the subject covered in my Ecclesiastes study on Friday. Part of the song talks about living your life on this Earth well, but what’s more important is the acknowledgement that you are going to fail. You just need to get back up afterward and continue to chase Christ.

One of the things I haven’t really talked about in Ecclesiastes is that Solomon sinned, a lot, in his attempts to find joy in the things of Earth. His having 700 wives and 300 concubines was not a cool thing by God. His massive collection of gold and silver that he idolized at one point was not a cool thing. He even had too many horses according to one of the laws in Deuteronomy 17:16.

The point is, there was a lot that Solomon did wrong. He has a lot of people beat purely on the wives and concubines portion, if we were to compare sins—not that we should. But even though he sinned often, he was, and is, considered the wisest man to ever walk the Earth. 1 Kings 3:12 says, “I will therefore do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has never been anyone like you before and never will be again.”

So, how much more allowable, then, is it for us to fail if Solomon could fail? And look at David, too. He was called a man after God’s own heart, and even he sinned many times. That’s why the following is one of my favorite lines:

And I guess not every little thing

Works out just the way you dreamed

You can take a couple wrong turns

Still end up where you’re supposed to be.

Sometimes, I catch myself looking at my past for too long—all the horrible decisions I’ve made, friends lost and found, opportunities missed—and I worry and fear for my future. Did I mess it up? Have I lost my chance at God’s promises for my life? If you think about that, too, know that the answer to your questions is: no. You absolutely have not messed up God’s plan for your life. You’re not strong enough to do that.

You can mess up. You can step off the straight and narrow. You can turn around and walk away for a time and still go where God will have you go. Especially if you didn’t just look God in the face and say, “I’m not doing that, God.” Jonah basically told God no and still ended up doing exactly what God had planned for him to do. So will you. A few steps in the wrong direction because you couldn’t resist temptation briefly in your human imperfection cannot stop God from doing what He plans to do through you and for you.

But it’s hard for us to think about that because we have trouble stepping outside of our past. We remember our mistakes for so much longer than we remember the good we’ve done. That’s another reason I like this song. It confronts our shame and tells us to leave it behind, which is exactly how God would have us do it:

The other day, I was thinking to myself

Made a list of all my mitakes

Oh, I wish I could’ve run to you

And tell you all about my heartbreak

And I wondered to myself ‘wait a minute

Am I even on the right path now?’

Had a couple wins, but I got knocked down

But I know that if you were here right now, and you’d say

Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win

You gotta get up, up again

Keep holding on, it’s not the end.

Hear it from me: God doesn’t want you living in shame. He’s forgiven you of your sin. It’s time that you forgive yourself and let your heart move on to serving God fully. Trust me. Living in your own shame will only hold you back from doing what God asks you to do. You don’t want that, and God doesn’t want that.

Feel guilt, because you are guilty of sinning. But let that guilt drive you to Christ. Then give it all to Him and move on. Get back up from your fall and keep on fighting. As the song says, you’ve only got one life, so don’t let it get away by staying down when you’re knocked on your butt. Hike yourself up and get after it again.

Listen to Up Again on Spotify. Dan Bremnes · Song · 2019.

We are Nobody

This is an important truth we as Christians must realize that is spoken of in the rather popular song called “Nobody” by Casting Crowns, featuring Matthew West. It’s interesting that this issue, in my opinion, happens to be the biggest holdup most Christians have when it comes to living their lives as God has called. We don’t like being nobody because it means we have to give up ourselves, and that’s hard.

But we’re called to do it. Philippians 1:21 says, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Notice that this verse doesn’t say, “To live is Nathaniel, or Jacob, or Elizabeth,” or any other name. It says to live is Christ. While you live, you are to be Christ, not yourself.

And in case that one isn’t enough, here’s another one straight from the mouth of Jesus in Luke 14:25-27, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, and even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” The Greek word for “hate” there, miseo, means hate, detest, love less, denounce. If you can’t denounce your own life, then you can’t live as Christ because you’re living for yourself.

This doesn’t mean you can’t value a wife, children, your parents, or your own passions because those are gifts given to you by God, but if you value them more than God, then you’re not doing it right.

That’s why I think the message of “Nobody” is so important. Specifically, I think of these lines:

So let me go down, down, down in history

As another blood-bought faithful member of the family

And if they all forget my name, well, that’s fine with me

I’m living for the world to see

Nobody but Jesus.

Your name, your legacy, it’s just not important. It’s not anywhere near as important as the legacy of Christ. Sure, you can leave your name and family legacy to your children, but if you don’t leave them the legacy of Jesus, what does it matter? If they don’t have Jesus, they’re going to Hell. Carrying on whatever human legacy you want to leave behind isn’t even close to the significance of leaving an inheritance that could show them to their eternal salvation.

To become nobody, to give up yourself to follow Christ is the ultimate goal. You want to go down in history as a member of Jesus’s family above all else. And being nobody comes with some really good news.

Have you ever felt called by God to speak to someone or do something? Have you ever been directed down a certain path, but you’ve chickened out because you’re scared, or run away because you didn’t want to do it?

Really think about this. How many times have you allowed your reputation, friendships, or job to keep you from sharing the Gospel? How often do you let your inhibitions stop you from going where God has called you?

The good news about making yourself nobody is that you give plenty of room for God to step in and take care of your fears. You give God room to do great things through you that He won’t do if you’re trying to stop Him every stop of the way because of your fears. Take these next lines:

Moses had stage fright

And David brought a rock to a sword fight

You picked 12 outsiders nobody would’ve chosen

And You changed the world

Moses was afraid of speaking to Pharaoh, but instead of giving into his own fear, he made his own fear nothingness and let God speak through him. Moses was unable, but God was able.

David was a shepherd with no skills but those meant to protect a flock of sheep. He was a boy, not a warrior. But he gave up who he was and God used him to defeat the mightiest Philistine warrior. David the shepherd never could’ve performed such a feat, but David, the nobody directed by God, did this amazing thing.

The 12 disciples were already nobodies, and Jesus picked them up and turned them into somebodies, using them to create a kingdom of nobodies who are somebodies in Jesus. See, our persons get in the way of God because they can fail, they have insecurities. But if we push those aside and keep ourselves from getting in the way of God, He can accomplish wonderful things through us.

So, go to the end of the line with the not-quites, the never-get-it-rights, the nobodies, and let God use you to do amazing things for the kingdom because that’s worth so much more than anything we could ever do alone.

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Burn the Ships

I don’t know about anyone else, but I grew up with music as an integral part of my life. My mom is a music teacher and was the choir director at my first church, so I was surrounded by, and practically bathed in, music for most of my life, and so I have a connection with it. There are some things that I just get better from music than anywhere else, but sometimes, lyrics don’t quite make sense the first couple times through, which is why I decided to start this section of my blog: lyric breakdowns.

See, for me, I sometimes hear God speak better when I’m listening to music. There’s something about worship that gets me focused on listening a little better than reading sometimes. So, without further ado, For King and Country’s “Burn the Ships.”

How did we get here?
All castaway on a lonely shore
I can see in your eyes, dear
It's hard to take for a moment more

This song starts with what I would deem the most ambiguous part of it, which makes sense, because it’s a query. That query is a question that I’m sure a lot of us ask when we struggle with sin. You get in so deep, and before you know it, you’re a castaway, abandoned on an island by yourself with no clue of how you arrived or where to go afterward.

If you check out the background of this song, you’ll find that Luke Smallbone, one of the writers, was driven to writing this partially by his wife’s battle with a prescription medication addiction. That’s where the last two lines of the first stanza come from.

Another part of the driving force behind the lyrics of this song has to do with historical figure Hernán Cortés, who, to ensure his men would follow through on their conquest of Mexico, ordered them to burn their ships, eliminating any chance of backing out.

We've got to

Burn the ships, cut the ties
Send a flare into the night
Say a prayer, turn the tide
Dry your tears and wave goodbye

While mostly self-explanatory, “Burn the ships, cut the ties,” is doubling down on eliminating escape routes. Basically, this is setting the boats on fire and then casting them off to sea, as well. So, not only are you destroying the integrity of the ship, you’re also sinking it so there’s no chance of salvaging any part of it.

“Send a flare into the night.” Flares are for emergency rescue situations. It’s a call for help because it’s so much harder to fight sin alone.

To turn the tide is to reverse the situation, as a tide turns from high to low. In the times of sailboats, the turning of the tide was extremely important to casting off to sea. If you were trying to set sail as the tide was coming in, it was far more difficult than if you cast out as the tide was going out. You had to put yourself in a favorable situation to more easily escape the harbor, and it’s the same with sin.

Step into a new day
We can rise up from the dust and walk away
We can dance upon our heartache, yeah
So light a match, leave the past, burn the ships
And don't you look back

I really love the first line of the chorus because it implies so many things. Not only is it mentioning a new beginning (“a new day”) but it also mentions that changing your life isn’t a passive thing. You can’t just let the new day come upon you, you must “step into” it. It’s an action of moving forward.

The second line re-enforces the first. Rising up from being knocked down isn’t something that just happens. You have to force your muscles into action, even against their aching protest (because you’d definitely be aching if you were knocked into the ground hard enough to kick up dust). And, you also have to “walk away” from the fight. A deeper implication here is that you have to pick yourself up and let someone take over the battle you were fighting, i.e., God.

And then, “dance upon our heartache” is significant in that it implies the necessity of joy, of finding the energy, the grace of God, to find joy even when you’re aching, in pain. I believe that’s important because we are called to have joy even when we are suffering.

Finally, “don’t you look back.” One of the most dangerous things about turning away from sin is the temptation to look back at what you’re running from. It’s dangerous because you see what you had, and you know it, and it attempts to draw you back in. Not looking at sin is the easiest way to avoid the temptation, I believe.

Don't let it arrest you
This fear is fear of fallin' again
And if you need a refuge
I will be right here until the end

For King and Country would agree with me, I think, based on the next stanza. We often consider the fear of the unknown as being literally that, fear of what you don’t know, but I’d argue that it’s more of a fear that we can’t handle what’s ahead. The first two lines are stating as such: don’t let the fear of failing stop you from moving forward. The next two lines serve as encouragement to go forward: even if you fall, there is a safe place where you can heal and rest to go forward again.

So long to shame, walk through the sorrow
Out of the fire into tomorrow
So flush the pills, face the fear
Feel the wave disappear
We're comin' clear, we're born again
Our hopeful lungs can breathe again

The last stanza to talk about is absolutely filled with metaphors that I could go on and on about, but I’ll keep it as short as possible.

One of the things that keeps us back from God is shame, feeling like we’re not enough and we won’t be accepted. Say bye to shame and go through the necessary feelings to shed that. If you have to be sad, hurt, in pain, walk through it. It’s something that’s here now, but there is another side to it where you’ll be free. You’ll eventually escape the “fire” and get to a new chance.

“Flush the pills” is another reference to Luke’s wife’s addiction, but it also serves as a symbol of any sin. Flush that down the toilet. Get rid of it in a way that you can’t go back for it. “Face the fear” of the unknown, of the uncomfortable and feel the unbearable weight that was prepared to come crashing down vanish.

Resurface from the water and breathe in the air, breathe in the hope of starting again, of being free from that pain and suffering of drowning.

I absolutely love this song, and I hope I’ve done a decent job of explaining it in a somewhat short manner. It’s filled with so much advice on how to combat sin in this life and really gets deep into the feelings that people who are suffering with these incredibly addictive sins such as drugs, porn, etc. feel as they’re trying to turn to God.

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