A New Song I Heard Tonight

As I was lying down with my youngest son when he went to bed, I heard a new song on the radio. Oh, this was a very new type of song. This was a beautiful yet piercing type of song. I would like to take the liberty to post the lyrics here.
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This song is sung by Todd Agnew and he gives thanks to Matthew for the lyrics.

Lyrics to My Jesus :

Which Jesus do you follow,
Which Jesus do you serve
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ,
Why do you look so much like the world

Cause My Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and liars,
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant
So which one do you want to be

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
or do we pray to blessed with with the wealth of this land
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sands

My Jesus bled and died for my sins
He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars,
He loved the poor and accosted the rich,
So which one do you want to be

Who is this that You follow,
This picture of the American dream,
If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side,
Or fall down and worship at His holy feet
holy
Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion,
Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins,
But the Word says He was battered and scarred
Or did you miss that part,
Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize Him

My Jesus bled and died He spent His time with thieves and the least of
these,
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable,
So which one do you want to be,
Cause
My Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet,
But He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud
And,
I think He'd prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud

I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus

Not a posterchild for American prosperity,
but like my Jesus
You see I'm tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus
but I'm not sure what that means to be like
You Jesus
Cause You said to live like You,
love like You but then
You died for me
Can I be like You Jesus?
I wanna be like you Jesus
I wanna be Like my Jesus

Meek Not Weak

I'm slowly digesting Matthew chapter 5:5 in my Bible.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" is the verse that has been on my mind.

The word meek will most likely conjure up different ideas, in the minds of different people. What do you think of when you hear the word meek?

Meekness is an attribute or characteristic of someone. I would dare to say, that meekness makes most of us uncomfortable. To be meek in today's world may look like you are weak, or you may fear that to be meek you would have to be weak. Good News! To be meek doesn't mean you are weak at all. Someone who is a very strong person can be meek.

Let's boil it down to this, someone who is a meek person is a humble person. First, it is of most importance to be humble toward God. In order to receive His salvation a person must humble themselves before God and acknowledge that they are a sinner in need of forgiveness from a Holy and Righteous God. It is a meek person who puts their total trust in the sacrifice that Christ Jesus gave, when he shed his blood on the cross for their sins. Not trusting in their own goodness or good works, is taking their own pride out of the equation. When a person does so, they are humbling themselves before God, and putting their total trust in Him. To be meek is to understand your position with God, coming humbly under his authority and plan.

Consider this Bible verse: "This is the on I esteem; he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word" Issiah 66:2. Each of these things mentioned in this verse are meek. To be humble is meek. To be contrite in spirit is to be repentant and sorry for your sins, and that is meek. When I tremble at God's word, I am walking under the authority of God and that is meek.
What about being meek in every day life? I think this is the tougher part.

Let's look again at words that describe meek. When studying this word in my Word Study Bible, I found these words to describe meekness: gentle, humble, considerate, courtesy, variant. I had to look up variant because it wasn't making sense to me in this context. Mr. Webster's dictionary tells me that variant means: something different from others of its kind. Now I get it! When a person is meek, they are different from others, it's not natural but supernatural!

I love to meet meek people and have them as a part of my life. There is a man who comes to my mind when I think of meek. Charles is a gentleman in the Sunday School class that Jeff, my husband, and I attend. Charles is full of Biblical knowledge and wisdom. When he speaks up to share during the class he doesn't promote himself, unlike another person who has a lot of his sentences that start with the word "I". No, Charles isn't about himself, he is about loving and serving Christ Jesus. He is a meek man and I love every chance I get to visit with him.

The Bible teaches to do to others as we would have them do to us. I need to treat others with meekness, just as I would want to be treated. I need to humble myself and consider not only my interest but also the interest of others. I would want others to be considerate and have courtesy with me, I need to do the same. I need to be mindful of others feelings and be gentle in how I respond to people. And right now,at this moment, I'm remembering that I need to even be gentle with my husband, and consider his feelings more. Ouch!

Now let me tell you, at times this is easy and other times I really fail, ask my husband. So for me, I will need to continually work on being meek. Praise God, as a believer in Christ, I have the power of the Holy Spirit to be meek. So, we will work on it together.

Jesus tells us that the meek will inherit the earth. What does it mean to "inherit the earth"? To inherit something means that you get to have something that belonged to someone else who is no longer living. So could this mean that the meek will get to have a future earth when this one passes away? I'm not completely sure what this means. Will I inherit the earth now if I am meek or will it be in the future? In 2 Peter 3:13 it is written, "But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness". I think part of the answer to my question is that if I am meek (remember that the most important act of meekness is toward God), I will inherit a new heaven and a new earth. Oh, what a reward!

I used to sing a song as a teenager at my church. Some of the lyrics are as follows: Make me a servant humble and meek, Lord let me lift up those who are week, And my the prayer of my heart always be, Make me a servant, Make me a servant, Make me a servant, I pray.

I have to be honest with you here. This is hard core stuff, so just give me a little bit more of your time. When I am at my happiest, when I am most fulfilled, when I have the greatest joy, is when I am serving another person for the glory of God. If being a humble and meek servant, as the song lyrics say is the prayer of your heart, then you will find that "sweet spot" in this life!

Marriage Can Be Hard Work

Marriage is hard work.

I can think of 4 of my friends who have difficult marriages. One goes to counseling, one is on the verge of not trying too hard anymore and one has given up on trying. It's painful to listen to their stories and know of their heart aches.

Sometimes my marriage is difficult. When you take two people who are polar opposite and mix them with children and life stress you get difficult situations. I think we work very hard at working them out. Sometimes it feels very exhausting. But the benefits of sticking it out far out weighs throwing in the towel.

Something was laid on my heart today. Something that I really don't think of too often. What about committing to loving my husband? Why not make a vow renewal in my heart between God and myself? So I did. I committed to loving my husband. Yes, I've already done that when we got married, but let's be honest, when your young and in love you get married with a "what I want from being married" attitude. I want to change that and really work on respecting and loving my husband. I'm not admitting that I don't respect him or love him, I just want to focus on respecting and loving him and not focus on me all the time in regards to my marriage.

Yes, I have needs in the relationship and I don't plan on ignoring them. The thing is, the less I focus on me the less I worry about me.

When each of my boys were born into the world, my hearts desire was to take care of them and meet their needs. I loved them no matter what. I loved them even if they took all I had to give and then cried for more. Why is this the way it is as a mom and not as a wife? I know the relationship is different between mom and child and wife and husband and maybe that difference makes all the difference. But I have to wonder, if I took the same attitude of unconditional love that I have toward my kids and applied it to my husband would it make my marriage better? I think so. So today I'm recommitting, but this time with a new view on my marriage. Yes, there are things that I want for myself in our marriage, but I also want to give my husband what he needs from our marriage. I want so much for us and plan on sticking out the difficult times. My mother always said that love is a commitment. I agree with my Mom. I will add to her axiom, love is a decision to be acted upon!

Mourning, It's A Good Thing!

Matthew 5:4, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

This has been a horse sized pill of a verse for me all of my life. How on earth could mourning be a blessing?

I think the first time I truly mourned was my freshman year in high school. Two girls who were in my sister's class (one year ahead of me in school), had been killed in a car accident. Another person who died from the crash was one of my friends sister. I mourned mostly for
the people who they left behind, who loved them and were torn apart by their death. This was an incredibly painful time. I didn't think any of us mourners were blessed.

I have never really understood this verse in the Bible and have only heard it explained one way. The way that I have heard it to be interpreted was that we are blessed when we mourn over our sin; when we have a repentant heart. I would agree with this.

I have been letting this verse roll around in my head for about a week now. How could it be that I would be blessed by mourning? Well, I know that I mourn over something that I have lost. A few things I have mourned over: I have mourned over family members that have died, I have mourned due to a young broken heart, I have mourned over foolish thinking that lead to sinful actions, I have mourned for other people's loss. How have these brought blessing to me?

What I could think of is that when we mourn we hurt, cry, and grieve. There is a letting go that happens when we mourn. We try and purge out our sorrow along with being brave enough to touch it and see just how deep the hurt is. When I mourn I realize how frail and needy I am. I realize my deepest needs; to be loved, cared about and to have people I love in my life. When I mourn I may be realizing my mistakes and wishing that I had done things differently, wishing that I had done them better. Mourning is very humbling. Mourning has shown me that the very fact that I have a deep, deep need in MY life, that everyone around me shares the desire to have their deep, deep needs met too. Mourning makes me really, really human and realize that everyone around me is too.

When I slowly come out of the depths of mourning and back into the land of the living, I have a sense of clarity of where I'm at in life and what I need. When I mourn I cry out to God and he proves himself faithful over and over again. He is my comforter. My relationship with him is deeper because I have been humbled and am aware that I have need and that he is the one to meet my needs. This relationship with the almighty God is my blessing. The mourning is a bridge that takes me from my everyday good life to the very heart and hand of God.

After a time of mourning, I seem to grow more compassionate. My heart sees the hurts and needs of others in a new light and I have a ready had to reach out because I have been there. I am more honest about life, how it can kick you in the stomach, and how God can take your hand and lift you up and heal you. I want to share with other people how great my God is. I want to be able to share how I am fragile, to be transparent so that others can be comfortable to share their mourning stories with me. My hearts desire is to encourage others and show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Yes, mourning isn't fun, it's one of the worst feelings and experiences of life. But just as a seed has to die underground before it can sprout and grow to bear fruit, it seems that we must mourn to understand where our true blessings lie.

Nobody wants to be poor......but it can be a good thing.

Well, here is the first foot out the door on my journey. I will start with Matthew 5 and the beatitudes. I just had a thought pop into my head about attitude. Years ago I was in the office of our Women's Ministry Director at the church I attended at the time. She had a poster on her wall that talked about how important your own attitude was. It makes me think of the beatitudes, and how like an attitude, it can change your life for the better. You are the one who controls if you live by the beatitudes or not. The cool thing is that with each beatitude there is a blessing.

I think most people would chose a blessing over a curse any day, I know I would. I want a wonderful blessed life. The thing is that God's idea of blessing and what I think in worldly terms of being blessed are not walking hand in hand. God's idea is on the flip side of popular thought. I think we all know it is much easier to go with the flow than to travel up stream. But the thing is that if you are willing to travel up stream, going the way of God, that is were you find the true riches and blessings.

So here is the first beatitude: Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Hmmmmm........this doesn't naturally equate in modern day. I have been thinking about this one for a few days. I looked it up in a concordance and have thought it through too. This is how my thinking goes when I want to dig deeper to understand something....what is the opposite? What is the opposite of a poor spirit? A rich spirit. I think of having a rich spirit as having full confidence in yourself; you are all you need. I think as Americans we are taught that to be a self made man (or woman) is a badge of honor. To live up to your potential and be all that you can be are how we are bread around this great land. The problem I have with this way of thinking is that it has a foundation and center around self.

I want to take that thought above and now look at a poor spirit. A person with a poor spirit doesn't think he is worth nothing, but he knows he is nothing without God. The person with a poor spirit knows that there is a God, one true God, and that without him nothing would exist. The person with a poor spirit knows his relationship with God is found wanting and that his is separated from God because he has sinned and will sin again and can't live up to God's holy standard for him. He knows that there is nothing that he can do to fix his sin and make it go away on his own. A person who is poor of spirit must humble himself and seek what God will do to fix this situation of sin and separation. God will show this person that the answer that He has given to the problem of sin and separation from Himself is faith that Jesus Christ, that he took the punishment of every person's sin upon Him when he died on the cross. Faith that this is true is the bridge that fills the gap between what Christ has done to fulfill what God demands as payment for sin. A person with a poor spirit who realises that this is truth has thus entered into the Kingdom of heaven. To be in the Kingdom of heaven is to live from now through eternity as God as your King, the ruler of your life. Jesus thus becomes the Lord of your life, and you in your grateful state of being saved from separation from God, walk humbly following they way of Christ Jesus. This my friend is the greatest blessing that I could ever imagine!

Heavy On My Heart

After talking with a close friend over the weekend, I have realized that I have experienced many different things over the past few months. Because of the way God made me, I internalized things and think deeply about them. I will move slowly on situations and take my time to figure out how I should react and try and figure out if my feelings about the situations are correct. Because of the mired of things that have been going on and my deep feelings, I have wanted to know how, in the light of my faith in Jesus Christ, I should be reacting to things around me.

I have it on my heart to journey through the New Testament in search of how Jesus lived his life, interacted with the people he encountered and what he taught in light of how we should live. Now don't get me wrong, I already know much of this. I have been a Christian for 33 years now. Yep, it was Christmas time when I was 6 years old that I decided to ask Jesus into my life. So this journey isn't because I have no knowledge on the matter, I just hunger and thirst for more.

I plan on posting about this journey. I want to post what I find and how the Lord has spoken to me. This is a personal journey, but I also want it to be one that I can share what I learn and hopefully inspire others to walk the way Jesus walked too.

I love my Lord with all my heart. When I am in a quiet place I have great plans of living for him. Yet, when I am out there, in the world, I find it difficult to always live the way my heart wants to. Also, I am often confused by the situations that go on around me that I have to deal with. I want to have a firmer base of knowledge, and the confidence to execute Christ like living!

Check back, I will be posting!