This week I am inspired to trust more fully in the Lord my God, and I hope to communicate that with you and to encourage you to place all of your faith and trust into Jesus Christ our Savior no matter what you may be facing in your life! He is so faithful, and wants to be that safe place for you to come and find solace!
So, this week we are singing songs at Eagleville Bible Church that help us to remember that God is our source and strength, that His love carries us, and that His Name is our safe place – leading us to worship and never stop singing about His goodness! Here is the list of songs we will be singing this Sunday (May 16th):
- Way Maker (YouTube Link)
- Matt 18:20,
- Isa 43:19,
- John 1:5,
- Rom 8:28,
- Because Of Your Love, (YouTube Link)
- Ps 77:11,
- Ps 107:22,
- Ps 73:28,
- Eph 1:7,
- Gratefully Broken, (YouTube Link)
- Ps 42:1-2,
- Ps 51:17,
- 2 Cor 12:10,
- Ps 33:8,
- A Mighty Fortress, (YouTube Link)
- Heb 12:29,
- Dt 4:24,
- 2 Tim 4:8,
- Heb 12:2,
- 2 Tim 2:12,
- Never Gonna Stop Singing, (YouTube Link)
- 1 Pet 2:9,
- Col 1:13,
- Phil 2:10-11,
- Rom 6:18,
- John 8:32,
Devotional Thought
On Tuesday morning I was in my prayer time and I felt the Lord impress on my heart that He wants me to spend more time with Him, offering up my worship to Him without an agenda (I was specifically praying for the members of the Worship Ministry that I lead, and I felt that the Word I received from the Lord needed to be extended beyond me to them as well). It was an eye opening thought, because I have been pretty consistent in my prayer times, a bit more inconsistent with my readings, very busy serving the Church, and doing what I can to keep my relationship with my wife strong by doing our devotions and prayers together too! So, from my perspective I was “doing” what I could to stay close to the Lord (and I do feel close to Him), but His Word to me reminded me that He wants my time and attention without a “purpose”, or agenda too. He wants some time with me to just connect with my deepest thoughts and concerns, to remind me of His love and grace for me, to encourage my spirit and strengthen my relationship with Him!
This is significant to me because I feel that we can very quickly get caught up in this cycle of praying for this and that (which is great), but before long overlook the need for us to just spend some time with our Savior! Jesus Himself set the precedence of doing this as we read through the Gospels and see verses that say He got up before the sun and spent time alone praying, or He spent all night praying. I don’t know what Christ was praying (aside from what was recorded in John 17), but I can imagine that He needed to be re-energized in the presence of His Father after spending day in and day out serving the people around Him! If Jesus Christ needs that then I wonder how many of us need to re-think our prayer times and be a bit more intentional about what and how we spend that time with our Father.
Some of us just need that reminder today, to spend focused, uninterrupted time with our Savior. Some of us may have forgotten that Jesus is our Mighty Fortress (our safe place), the only place we can truly be open and honest about all of our deepest feelings because the One we are opening to already knows them all anyway! Jesus is our Way Maker, Promise Keeper, Light in the Darkness, Hope when we feel hopeless, Comfort when we feel hurting, Healer when we are sick, Rest when we are weary, and the list goes on and on! The way that we get reminded of that is to spend time with the Lord seeking those things for ourselves, and to read the Word of God highlighting all of the promises given to us in the Bible!
All too often I feel that we seek these things for others that we see going through hard times, and I certainly think that is a great thing and that we should continue to do that, but at times we do not understand that we are the ones in need of that grace and mercy from the Lord! It takes a great deal of humility from us to confess to the Lord that we are fearful, hurting, lacking wisdom, in need of deliverance from a reoccurring sin, etc., but I feel that the first person we need to share the Gospel with each day is ourselves! We need that constant reminder on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis.
We see this when someone in the Scriptures gets close to the Lord! People like Isaiah, who said, “I am a man of unclean lips,…” (Isa 6:5), or Peter who said, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8). These men realized their sinfulness and need for God when they got close to Him! I think that same thing happens to us, the closer we get to the Lord the more we understand our complete dependence upon Him for our lives!
So, what does this have to do with the songs for this week? Well, firstly let me say that it doesn’t have to have anything to do with the songs! Maybe you and I just needed that reminder this week! Secondly, I feel it is an important principle to remember when we are singing lyrics like, “You are here touching every heart, mending every heart, turning lives around”, etc. When we sing that, we might have the tendency to think of everyone else in the room instead of ourselves! When we sing, “As we come into Your presence, we remember every blessing that You’ve poured out so freely from above,…Because of Your love; we’re forgiven, our hearts are clean, we are forever changed…”, we may forget that it is us who have received all of those blessings!
All of this is important for us because the Lord wants our broken and contrite hearts to seek Him, because He will never turn a broken heart away! So when we come to Him each day, Gracefully Broken before Him, He will reinvigorate us with hope in His presence, because we are surrendering ourselves to Him – trusting Him to provide our deepest needs and desires when we seek Him with all of our hearts. As we sing “All to Jesus now, I am holding nothing back”, I hope and praying that we truly mean that from our hearts! Not just on Sunday morning during a “Worship Service”, but each and every day seeking the Lord for our own needs and to offer up our worship and praise without any agenda’s! Remaining in a position of awe in His presence at all times!
One of the songs also says of the Lord that He is an All Consuming Fire, and that thought comes from the idea that God is a jealous God (Dt 4:24)! He is jealous for us! He desires our attention, our affection, our devotion! God is jealous for our time and energy! This is such a great truth, and I do pray that as you are reminded of it now that you will accept the challenge to spend intentional time with the Lord today, seeking to be filled to a measure that is overflowing in His presence!
Finally, as we sing the last song this week, we will recite the reality that God called us out of darkness and reached down to save us, He conquered the grave and crossed the divide in order to offer us forgiveness and everlasting life in Him! We are set free, no longer bound in chains to the sins that once held us in slavery, all because of the love and sacrifice of the Savior, Jesus Christ! I hope and pray that this will inspire each of us to truly never stop singing from the deepest recesses of our hearts, with gratitude, from a place of familiarity with the presence and closeness of our God!
God bless you!
