Song Break Down - Our Time Is Now pt2

Now if I can be transparent for a minute. I know that when I do these Song Break Downs that I tend to go in depth, more than my normal posts, and my post are really long. Well as a critique from my mom, who reads every one of my posts, she is not a big fan of this series, because it is so academic. I am in the advance English class at my school, and I love to take text or a song, and break it down to it's elements and extract meaning from it, and then write a paper on it. I find that to be fun, but I am realizing that it may not be fun to other people. My last post completely confused my mom and brother, because of how deep it went, and they are both intelligent people. So if it confused them, I know that it probably confused some of my other readers. My mom said that I need to take what I learned, or what I write about and connect it back to life, to take it from the abstract and place it in the concrete. I can easily say that we need to trust God, but unless I give examples, I'm just talking in ideals, and ideals are hard to implement in life. So I am going to try to bring what I learn from ideals and how it can be applied to life in my posts, especially in my Song Break Downs. I would normally do it in the same post, but I needed the extra post to write about what my mom talked to me about, or else the part one would be really long.

The whole last post talked about how it is our time. But it is hard to see how that will play out in our life. So I have complied a list to help you get thinking, and trust me there is more out there than just what I have listed. 

OUR TIME IS NOW TO....

-read the Bible to get to know our rock.

-believe in the fact that God is always with us, and that his love is new everyday.

-believe that God sent the Holy Spirit to helps us and to intercede on our behalf. 

-go into the halls of our schools, with a heart that is on fire for God.

-stand up for what we believe when our faith comes into question.

-share the gospel in our schools, no matter what the consequences are.

-stop judging who God can save, and who he can't save.

-put everything into our work, as if we are working for God and not man.

-turn away from temptation.

-ask God to free us from the chains that are holding us down.

-believe that God is the master of overcoming the impossible.

-be a light to a dark world through our actions and words.

-claim that we believe in the one true God, and that we will follow Him where ever He may lead us. 

-love our enemies, and to pray for those who hate us.

-pray for the people who are in need. 

-volunteer our time helping the less fortunate.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for being a rock for me to lean on, and thank you for your love that completes me. I pray that I will start now and that I won't stop loving you, and sharing your love with the world. Lord, I want my heart to be on fire for you, and I want to follow you and not the things of this world. I need you strength to help me get through the difficult times in my life, but I know that you are always with me, and that you are my refuge and my shield. I pray that you will use me to share your love to a broken world, whether that be in my school or in my community. Thank you for your renewed love everyday Lord. Thank you. Amen. 

Song Break Down - Our Time Is Now pt1

The second song that I am going to look at from Colton Dixon is "Our Time is Now" which is off his second album, Anchor. This is a real upbeat song, and one that is fun to dance to. The song starts of with a focus on the how if we chase after the world that we will never be satisfied. "Are you tired of the life/ That leaves us begging for more?/ We got our heads in the clouds/ But our feet on the floor/ We tend to chase everything/ That ends up leaving us dry" You can tell that from the verse, that when we fall in love with the things of this world, that we actually end up filling empty inside, and there are verses in the bible that can back that up. 1 John 2:15-17 says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." It is the love of the God that will ever make us fell complete, but because we live in the world it is so easy to fall to the patterns of the world. Any desires that you have that aren't from God, but are from you, are from this world, and it says in the Bible that the world desires are only here to steal, kill, and destroy. (John 10:10) The thing is that the world is going to pass away, that one day there will be no earth, but God and his desires and his love last forever. 

From the verse we have a good lead in to the chorus, which goes, "So raise your first high/ This is the first night/ The beginning of forever/ So let the old die/ Cause there is new life/ Forever start tonight/ Our time is now." I find the chorus to be really empowering. The chorus reminds me of Romans 12:2 which says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the remaining of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing, and perfect will." The chorus talks about our new life that we have in Jesus Christ. Now for many of us who has believed in God for a while knows how easy it is for us to put God on our to-do list, and not take the time to really get to know him, and many of us fall into the desires of this world. We need our minds to be renewed everyday to remind us that God loves us, and that his mercies are new everyday, so that we will be able to do the will that he has for our life. It doesn't matter if this is you have just received Jesus, or if you have known him for years, we all can start from where we as RIGHT NOW and decide that we no longer want to live a passive life, that is controlled by the world, but a life that is on fire for God.

The second verse is the opposite of the first verse. The first verse talks about a life that is living in the world, where the second verse talks about a life that is lived in God. "It only takes one second/ To turn it around/ We got our minds made up/ Let's put our stake in the ground/ All the pain, all the shame/ Have you had enough of it?/ Are you ready for the change?"  The second verse is talking about taking a stand in God, and the change that it will bring. This reminded me of Psalms 18:2 which goes, "The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold." When we place our trust in God, and not of the things of the world, we then have a place to take refuge, who is going to be a shield for you, and who is your salvation. He is there for you. you no longer have to fell empty or incomplete, but you can feel God's love everyday. That is why I love the question at the end of the second verse. When you place your trust in God, your world will begin to change, not rapidly, but it will change for the better. You will see things in a new light, and though it won't take you struggles away, it will give you an immovable rock to lean on. 

Around this time I would finish my post and put a pray at the end, but I broke this into two parts because, I got some critique form my mom on Wednesday, that I want to address, and I want to change how I end my posts.  So part two is going to post right after this one, and I encourage you to read it. 

Song Break Down- Dare to Believe

So I am starting another Song Break Down series. I'm going to do eight songs, one song per post, and all the songs will be from Colton Dixon. The first song that I'm going to break down is "Dare to Believe." This is one of the songs off his newest album, Anchor.

As I was reading the lyrics, I found something interesting in the verses.

The first verse goes "I was just a kid when I heard about the stories/ Of the prophets, teachers/ Priests, kings, and queens/ Of water turned to wine/ How You brought the dead to life/ They were more than words/ They were truth to me.
We get older, life gets harder/ We grow farther away/ And lose the faith we fought so hard to keep"

The second verse goes, "If you were just some carpenter from nowhere/ An ordinary man with ordinary news/ Then we would not be here/ Still claiming You all these years/ We believe the stories/ Because they're true

Some might call me crazy/ But I'm no fool"

Now the interesting thing that I found in the verses are use of the pronouns of "I" and "We." In the first verse, majority of it uses the "I" pronoun, with using "We" at the end. In the second verse, that is flipped. Majority of the verse talks with the pronoun "We" with "I" being used towards the end. I find the use of pronouns as a reflection of our personal relationship with God. If you grew up in a Christian home, we tend to have our own relationship, and we believe what the Bible tells us. The thing is that you grow older, and you find a group where you fit in and your faith might be challenged as collectively your group moves farther and farther away from God. I feel like many of us at some point in our lives move away from God, but yet we still go to church. It is just that you don't believe what is being taught. But while you are going to those group functions, something finally clicks and you have a renewed faith, and then you have a strong faith that you believe in. I see this as being a cycle, of you or I, and the We. If what I said confused you, I hope the diagram below helps.

Now that just talks about how you fit in to your relationship with God. But we are missing a part, and that is where God fits into this. Well the bridge of the song is dedicated just to God. The bridge goes, "You are the Son of God/You lived and died for us/You're here and You are still alive" In these three lines, you can find so much truth, and you can see the foundation of what faith is. 1 John 4:15 says, "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God," which affirms the first line, "You are the Son of God" from the bridge. To affirm the second line look at John 11:25 which goes, "Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live." For the last line of the bridge proof can be found in 1 Corinthians  15:20, which says, "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." God is alive, and he is with us, and he loves us. Just as the bridge brings the whole song together, God is the one in our lives that holds us together. God is in the middle of the circle for Matthew 6:33a says, "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." This cycle is one that we will fall into during the course of our lives, but we needed to remember that you need to keep your eyes focused towards God. There are times when God might be blurry to us sometimes, but eventually he will come back into focus. This is easier to do some days than others, but God should come first no matter what stage in life, or in the cycle you are in. 

Colton Dixon "Dare To Believe" on youtube

Recap of Semester One

So if you remember last Saturday, I didn't write the post that I wanted to write because between Wednesday and  last Saturday, life got a little crazy. I think that I have processed most of what happened, and I have laid out some of the bigger points.

-You will face difficult times in your life.- John 16:33 talks about going through hard times, and the fact that we will face trials in our life. For me my trials were found in my Japanese final, which I didn't do so well on, and having to take a final on topics that I didn't know to well because we had a sub. But the verse continues on to say that, "But take heart; I have overcome the world." God has already overtaken the world when he rose up from the grave. No trial that you are facing is to big for God to handle. 

-God is always with you.- Going into finals, there were some that I felt confident on, and there were some that I were scared to take, like math. Deuteronomy 31:8 says, "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”Before I took my math final, or any final, I prayed that God would be with me, and that he would help me recall all the information that I had learned. Going into each test, knowing that God is with me, gave me the courage and strength that I needed to take my finals. Over all, I got pretty good grades on my finals. My best was math, where I got a 96% which was my only A this semester.

-Your identity is found in God, and not the numbers.- For most of us, we get so caught up in the grades and the percentages. Most of us will do anything to have our grade go up one percentage point so that we can get the next letter grade. But when we are in Christ, we are children of God. John 1:12 says, "But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." When you are standing before God in Heaven, he won't be judging you by your grades, but by your faith in Him as his child. Grades are important, and you should try your best, but they don't define you. 

These are the three big ideas that came out of the last week. I pray that if you are struggling with school or your grades, that you will take comfort in this. 

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for encouraging us to learn, and to grow as humans. I pray that you will be near us through every trial, and that we find our identity in you as children of God, and not in the grades that we get. Amen.

It's All in The 'Tude- Loving Our Enemies

So many of us know that we are suppose to love our enemies. Luke 6:27 says, "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." But no matter how many times that we are told this, it doesn't get any easier to do. The girl who insulted you, or the guy who pushes you around in school, it is difficult to love them. I mean how can you love someone, who is out to destroy you. But God wants us to love them, no matter how hard it is. So the first step is to change our attitude towards them. If we stop viewing them as our enemies, but as people, then things start to seem as if you can love them. When we view them as enemies, we see then as something that we have to conquer. When we view them as being people, then it becomes easier to see how you can love them. Every person has their own set of wants and desires, their own set of fears, and their own set of heartaches. Our job then becomes one of trying to understand them, and to love on them for who they are. Things no longer become a search and destroy mission, but one of loving on someone who is broken and they have their own struggles. We need to shift our attitude from one that wants war, to one that wants peace.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the people who love me and thank you for your love. I pray that I can take the love that has been given to me and reflect in onto my enemies. I pray that you help me see them as people like you see them Lord. Amen.

It's All in The 'Tude- Parents

If you have parents, or a guardian who is raising you, then you know that you butt heads with them on numerous accounts on a wide variety of topics. And no matter what the argument is, they seem to always throw up the "you'll understand when you are older," or the "it's for your own good," card to your face. As someone who has had conflicts with my parents, I understand how frustrating it is to have that said to you. If you have grown up a Christian, then you might know might know that one of the Ten Commandments is to honor your mother and father. But I read that direct verses again from when the Ten Commandments were being written, and there was more to that. The entire verses from Exodus goes, "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." The whole reason  for us to honor our mother and father, is so that we may be prosperous as we grow older. They are protecting you, and they want you to be successful when you are grown up.  The line "you'll understand when you are older" may actually have meat behind it. Many of us are still living with our parents, and we haven't experienced what it is like to own our place, to have a job and to raise a family. When you are older you will eventually understand the position that they are in, and the decisions that they made. The line"it's for your own good" is them stating that they are trying to protect you, so that you may live long and be successful when you are on you own. So what if every time that we face our parents we had an attitude of gratitude, for they are trying to protect, and they have your best interest at heart. What if we went in with an attitude of knowing that we don't need to know all the answers now, but that we will soon understand.  I bet that there will be a shift in our relationships with our parents if we change our attitudes. I know that I'm going to try to shift my attitude.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the parents or guardians that you have placed in our lives. I pray that when I interact with my parents that I will have an attitude shift. I know that they work hard to protect me, and to set up a future where I can be successful. Thank you for the parents I have. Amen. 

It's All in The 'Tude- Connecting with God

The first situation that I want to talk about is how our attitude when we spend time with God can affect how we perceive who he is, and what he has in store for us. The Bible mentions time and time again that we need to be actively seeking God.  Deuteronomy 4:29 says, "But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul." The important thing to remember is that when we are seeking God is that we have to truly be seeking Him with all of our heart and soul. God doesn't want you to only seek Him half heartily, but he wants you to be pursuing Him with all that you have. For it is when you are all in, then you can truly discover who God is, and what he has to say about you. Proverbs 8:17 says, "I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me." I know that last week, I focused on working diligently in all that we do, no matter how boring. Trust me, there will be times when there are other things that we so much would rather be doing than just reading the Bible or praying, and God understands because he knows the sin in our hearts, but he enjoys it when you make time for Him personally. When you take the time to get to know Him, you learn things about Him that you might not have known before, and you learn things about who you are. Many of us, including me have questions about what our future holds, and we can catch a glimpse at our future when we take the time to connect with God so that he may show you. You just have to go into every time that you connect with God with an attitude of wanting to actively seek Him, an attitude that is willing to spend time with Him, and a attitude that will delight in who he is, and what he has in store for you.  

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for being so patient with me, and how I so often give you only the scraps of my time. I pray that I will go into each time that I spend with you with an attitude of one who is actively seeking you, and and attitude of one who truly wants to know you with all my heart and soul. Amen. 

In case you didn't read last weeks post, here they are. 
Working through the Boring
Working through the Boring pt2

It's All In The 'Tude

So I have been thinking a lot lately about attitude, and how our attitudes changes often. So today, I'm going to be writing many posts on the same topic, attitude, but each post in going to vary by the situations that I plan to talk about. So continue to check in today to see what I am going to talk about.

Working Through the Boring pt 2

I know that Wednesday that I said I would write about what I learned from being diligent in my work in history before my other post. Well I'm changing that up a little, by making this the post for the day. There was so much that actually happened this week, that I'm still trying to process what happened. I worked diligently in history with taking notes, and I was able to retain more information, even though it took me longer to complete. But I was able to hold a good conversation in class, because I took my time to understand the material. Hard work does pay off in the long run, even if you can't see immediate results right now.

I know that this isn't the longest post, but after what happened this week, I want to take time to digest what happened so I can explain it in the best way possible, because I learned a lot in a few days, and I want to be able to articulate what happened, and what I learned.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for knowing the plans in our life, and how they are going to play out before we do. I pray that you help each one of us to be diligent in what we do, and that if anyone is struggling, I pray that you will just be there with them every step of the way. Thank you Lord for all that you do. Amen.

Working Through the Boring

I was doing a Bible study in my devotional Bible when I came across this topic of persistence that I thought was really cool. It was based off the Bible verse 2 Chronicles 24:13 which goes, "The men in charge of the work were diligent, and the repairs progressed under them. They rebuilt the temple of God according to its original design and reinforced it." Now the construction of a temple is not the most exciting thing, and it is a lot of hard work. When you read the verse though, we see that the workers are very diligent in what they do. They are focused on completing this task and they are going to do it correctly the first time around. Diligence is all about being careful and being persistent in your work, no matter how boring or hard it is. Now stop and think of a class that you do that is rather boring. For some people it is math, for others it is English. For me it is history. I get distracted so easily, and it is rather boring, and most of time I would so much rather be doing anything else. So after reading this verse and studying it, I have a challenge for my readers and me. We all can name one thing that we find boring, but I challenge you and me to do that task or homework assignment with diligence, and I want to know what you got as a result. I will post what I found on Saturday before my normal posting. 

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for giving us things that we love to do, and I pray that you will help us to be diligent in all that we do, no matter how boring it might be. I want to be like the workers who worked diligently on your temple Lord. Amen.

Being Strong in School

I have mentioned my IB Theory of Knowledge class before, and I truly enjoy the class. For this class we had to write a big paper, and we had to do an oral presentation. The paper we had to write is called The Title Paper, and we had to choose a title and write about it. The title I chose was about how shared knowledge can become personal. For the oral presentation we had to give a ten-minute presentation about a real life situation and bring in the terms that we use in class.

Now I know that you love to read all about my projects that I do in class, but I know that you are excited to learn how my projects have anything to do with God. Well as Christians we are tasked to spreading the news about God and who God is. What better way to do this then in the papers and presentations that we give. I go to a public school, so I know how scary it can be when it comes to sharing your faith in a class. The results that come out of sharing can be very rewarding though.

For the paper that I wrote, I looked at the song "Praise You In This Storm" by Casting Crowns (big shocker there). I wrote about how the song had a personal impact on Mark Hall from Casting Crowns, the victims of hurricane Katrina, and how I had made the song personal to me. I didn't share this paper with the whole class, but I did go over it with my teacher and we ended up having a conversation about Casting Crowns, and their music. I found it cool to just talk about a Christian artist with my teacher freely. It gave me insight that teachers do have lives outside of school, (believe it or not) and that you might actually be able to connect with them on a more personal level.

For my presentation, my real life example was the song "Things Are Looking Up" by R5 (Yes another shocker there) and how it is categorized as a secular song. My presentation was about taking this secular song and transporting it into a non-secular category. The first point that I made is the language that is used in the song, taking examples from my Song Break Down that I did on this song. I then talked about the perception that the world has on this song and the perception that I have of this song. At the end of my presentation, I got good feedback. The big shocker came a couple periods later. We were in history and the girl next to me just started talking about my presentation. What we talked about for a majority of the conversation was that secular love songs could be non-secular if you are using them to sing about your love for God. Then later that period, my friends and I were talking about the implications of my presentation. It was a natural conversation just based off a ten-minute presentation.

Now, I feel comfortable with sharing God through my schoolwork because I do it often, but you may not. If you struggle with this, or you are afraid of what your peers would think, just know that God is always with you. Deuteronomy 31:6 says, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." God is with you when you share in class or you talk about Him with your friends. He is standing right beside you, so take comfort that you are not alone. I pray that you find encouragement in this post when you do your school assignments.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for being with us everywhere we go, and that we are never alone when we are sharing our faith. Help me to be strong to speak out for you during school, and thank you for the opportunities that you present me to share my faith. Amen.


If you want an idea of what the projects where like, here are the links to the post where I got the ideas from.

Title Paper
Praise You In This Storm
Dancing With Jesus

Oral
Things Are Looking Up pt1
Things Are Looking Up pt2

New Year, Same Stress

It is the beginning of the New Year, and I bet most of us already feel stressed. I have finals next week, (Yes, that is weird) and I have college scholarships due, and I have other activities like the musical that I need to focus on. Some people may be worried about the new semester coming up, or maybe it is a family problem, or relationship struggle that you are facing. The New Year is suppose to be about new beginnings and starting fresh, but we are only a week in and we have fallen into the same traps, the same things we stressed about in 2014. We all get discouraged when we fall back into what trapped us before. The thing is, the things that stressed us before, didn't go away  with the new year. I still have school and finals. Your stresses didn't just go puff with the new year. If that is true, then what is the point of trying to make a resolution to stress less.
If that is the what you are struggling with, may I suggest a change in focus. Instead of focusing on what stresses us out and wishing that they will disappear, focus on how you receive stress. We tend to focus on what is stressing us, and then we try to relieve the stress by ourselves, through multiple ways. But there is only one way that you're stress will disappear, and that is giving it to God. 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." When you cast all that stresses you onto God, he will take care of it. He is the God of the universe, and he can do the impossible, and he care about you and what stresses you. By giving it up to God, you are putting it in the best hands possible. He is able to take care of your stress when you couldn't. That doesn't mean that everything that stresses you out will disappear, but it does change how you deal with stress. I challenge all of you to try casting your cares on the Lord, and see what happens, I bet that you are a lot less stressed.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for caring for everything that stresses me out. Today I want to give you all that has me stressed, and I trust that you will take care of it, and that you will use it for what is best for me. Thank you for caring so much about me, and knowing me, no matter how small I feel. Amen.

The Future

I don’t care how much we try to avoid it, but we all have a future.

Some of us think that our future is so far away that we don’t need to worry about it now.  Most of us are just trying to get through school, or college, or whatever we are doing. But we should be thinking about our future and how our actions can shape it.  

I was reading the beginning of Lamentations, and for those of you who haven’t read it in great detail before, it talks about the downfall of Jerusalem with her sin and how everyone had turned away from God.  The one verse in there that stuck out to me was:  

Lamentations 1:9 “Her uncleanness was in her skirts; She did not consider her future. Therefore she has fallen astonishingly; She has no comforter. "See, O LORD, my affliction, For the enemy has magnified himself!”

When the people in Jerusalem were sinning and turning away from God, they weren’t thinking of the destruction that it would have on the city later. Then the future came, and they were in deep with their sins from the past. And even though this happened a long time ago, it still can happen to us. If you are just worried about today, then you might go get drunk, or sleep with your boyfriend before marriage. But in the future those actions can have consequences like having an accident because you are drunk, or having to drop out of school because you have to take care of your child by yourself. I’m not saying that you need to worry constantly about your future, but keeping you future in the back of your mind when you are about to do something, might stop you from doing something you will regret later.

Dear Heavenly Father
Thank you for knowing my future and the plans you have for it. Help me out prepare myself now for what may come in my future.. Help me to make the best of what I have now so that I will be able to test and approve your will for my life. Amen.