The week after Easter! How are you feeling? Are you still inspired? Are you still full of hope due to the resurrected Christ? Has the excitement and joy of Easter already wore off? I hope not! The resurrection is something that we need to celebrate each and every day! I look forward to this Sunday (4/11/21), and the opportunity we have to come together again and celebrate the fact that God is alive and that He is intricately involved in every area of our lives! That is exciting to me and it offers me hope for the future! Let’s take a look at this week’s set list of songs that we will be singing together at Eagleville Bible Church!
- Burn for You, (YouTube Link)
- 2 Cor 3:10-13,
- Romans 12:1,
- 2 Cor 5:17,
- Ps 51:17,
- Marvelous Light, (YouTube Link)
- 1 Cor 15:54-56,
- Eph 2:12,
- Gal 5:1,
- 1 Pet 2:9,
- Whole Heart (Hold Me Now), (YouTube Link)
- Ps 40:1-5,
- John 10:28-30,
- Gen 1:1,
- Rom 5:15, 20,
- Ps 142:1,
- Phil 4:23,
- Heb 2:14-16,
- The Stand, (YouTube Link)
- Gen 1:1,
- Isa 53:4-5,
- Rom 12:1,
- Luke 9:23,
- Lam 2:19,
- Ps 63:4,
- How Great Thou Art, (YouTube Link)
- Gen 1:1,
- Col 1:15-16,
- Ps 103:1,
- Ps 146:1,
- Isa 53:4-5,
- Eph 5:2,
- 1 John 3:5,
Devotional Thought for This Week
I was in the Barber shop one day, flipping through a National Geographic book, and I came across a chilling story about the Vietnam War. The writer was stating how he was captured by the Vietnamese soldiers and kept as a POW. One day as they were transferring him to another location, he was weak and almost completely lost all hope of being rescued. As they were escorting him through the streets of the town, he felt the urge to attack the two men escorting him, take their guns, and run. As best I can remember the story, I recall these words from him, “Although the temptation was to take my survival into my own hands, I knew I needed to allow the American forces to come and rescue me. They knew I was captured and I knew I could count on them to rescue me. I had to come to grips that the first step to my survival journey was to just surrender!” (That is a paraphrase from my memory).
This has stuck with me for roughly 15 years after reading it, because it had such a profound impact on my faith journey. How many times have I tried to take my life into my own hands, do things the way I think is best, and missed receiving the blessing of having the One I know is at work in me rescue me through my surrender to Him?
As I look at the songs from this week, I can see the underlying theme of surrender being at the heart of their message. I have learned not to over think this when I am creating these set lists, but to pray and allow the Holy Spirit to direct as I plan. More often than not, I will pick up on a theme that runs through the list that either I really need or someone else will comment on the songs really ministering to that specific area of their lives! It is so exciting to witness this week after week in this ministry.
So, I am not sure if there is an area of your life right now that you have not surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, but I would like to invite you, even exhort you, to allow Jesus full and complete access and control of that area right now. Commit to the process of trusting Him with that area of your life, by faith, and looking to Him to rescue you from the unnecessary stress and frustration you will have to endure when you take it into your own hands. Can you imagine if that soldier would not have surrendered to the process? Most likely he would not have ben writing about that incident had he not trusted in the unseen reality that the military was at work to free him even though he had no real idea if they were! It took a great deal of faith!
In the first song, Burn for You, there is a lyric in there that says, “I want to live from this place, where I meet with You Lord face to face.”. I believe this is a critical step to feeling secure in the fact that God is on our side, that He is fighting for our freedom, that He will guide us and instruct us in the way that we should go, that we can surrender to Him because He cares for us and is faithful to deliver us always! We need to know Him, before we can trust Him, right? Sheep will not follow, or even come to, a voice they do not recognize, and the only way they come to know and recognize that voice is through exposure to it. We need to spend time listening for, and recognizing the Good Shepherd’s voice so that we can trust it when He does speak direction into our lives!
God has called us out of the darkness we were trapped in, and is sending us out into this world as children of the light now. We are the ones that he has entrusted with the Gospel message, to declare that in our weakness He is made strong, through our surrender He strengthens and establishes us, in His Name we experience freedom! It makes me want to lift my hands and spin around, jump up and down, and sing praises to my King whenever I consider all of this! He really does care for us and love us! The God of the universe, the One who stood before all of creation, looking into all of eternity, wants to bless us with fullness of life as we surrender to Him!
It is because of this truth that I have absolutely no problem surrendering my whole heart to Him. I know that there is no other way for me to experience the abundant life aside from this. He doesn’t desire anything but my broken and contrite heart (which only means a soft and humble heart that He can mold and shape into His image), and when I give Him control of that part of me, then He is able to deliver me from the sin, pain, traps, toxic people, and everything else that is hindering my growth in Him! “Healed and forgiven, look where my chains are now!” They are gone! He has set me free!
Oh the feeling of being set free, rescued from the pit I was trapped in! I honestly think I feel the same joy and freedom that the soldier felt when the American Military forces showed up, opened the prison doors, and rescued him from the prison he was trapped in! That is what God did for me through Jesus! He freed me from the life of darkness I was trapped in, I couldn’t do it on my own! I needed a Deliverer! I needed a Savior! I needed the Commander of Heavens armies to rescue me, and He did! Hallelujah.
Prayer
Oh How great Thou Art, God of the universe! To come from heaven to earth, live a perfect and blameless life, die a death that I deserved, and to be raised to life everlasting all in order to rescue all of us who are trapped in a lifestyle of sin. My soul will sing your praises forever! My heart will be whole-heartedly surrendered to You for all of eternity. I give You access and control of every area of my life, I surrender to You, and I am grateful that I can trust You with my life! You have said that You will never leave me or forsake me, that You are for me, and that You love me. Oh, how great Thou art, indeed! In Jesus Name, please give me the strength to surrender everything to You. Amen!
God bless you!
