A reason to sing

A Psalm. Oh, sing to the LORD a new song! For He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory. Psalm 98:1

It’s time we sing a new song! We can’t live any differently singing the same ole’ song. We must change our tune or we’re still just drumming along to the same ole’ beat. Our focus and attitude determines our outcome.

What if our circumstances aren’t perfect, changed or different? They won’t be until you sing the new. The people in 2 Chronicles 20, who were on the front lines, went out to battle singing before the battle was even won. They didn’t wait until they won. And guess what? They won! They went out with a victorious attitude and a whole different point of view than defeat, and even if they were scared, they continued to sing. We don’t have to know the outcome before we give the praise. If we really trust Who’s with us, why doesn’t our attitude reflect that if we really believe?

Will you be willing to go on ahead and give praise before you know the outcome?

Maybe you don’t feel like you even have a song left to sing. Maybe you have been knocked down. God knows your heart. It’s not easy. But we can’t give up without a fight. And truth is, maybe you have fought for a long time and you’re just tired. God is our rest and we can rest in Him, but we don’t quit near the end. We don’t quit until victory and then we continue to sing. Sometimes, it’s the only way to get back up, to sing.

Maybe you’d say: “But you don’t know what’s been done to me?” And No, I don’t…. But He does! Look what was done to Jesus? He overcame! He has major compassion and empathy and doesn’t discount one iota of what’s been done to you or me, and He does loves you SO MUCH that He died and took your place. None of it took Him by surprise. None of it! He knew it all before it would happen, just as He knew you. He died so that you could overcome it because He knew you would face it. Right? Have you ever thought about it like that? He’s not surprised by any of it.

So, we can come out stronger on the other side of this situation and every other one that we’ll face because He’s already went before us. But, the other side to the story is that Satan want to keep you down trodden and full of defeat! Why? Because he doesn’t want you to know that you can win so he lies to you? We must know the whole truth.

What happens if you see a pro athlete that you know has the ability to be a winner sitting on the sidelines wasting all his potential because someone lied to him? You’d tell him to get up. You see what’s within. But reality is, it doesn’t negate the fact that he is a winner inside but unless he runs the race or fights the fight, he won’t win. God has given us everything that we need to win but not unless we use it and we must not quit. It’s easy to give up in defeat but we are so much more than that.

It’s time to stop the enemies lies and stand up to him and fight him with truth. The Bible says for the weak to say so! To Say they’re strong, no matter how they feel. When we are weak, He is strong. He picks up where we leave off. We are more than conquerers through Him. I truly believe that but so many times I get distracted and disappointed and start giving into a lie! We don’t have to wait for all circumstances to be good! Why? Because we serve a God Who has already went before us, won the war though it still wages, and Who paid the ultimate price for our sin on that cross, and promised us victory! But victory never came without a fight. It’s a battle but I will choose to praise my way through. It’s up and down but I am going through… what about you? We’re better together.

I have a choice although the enemy tells me I don’t! I do and there’s power in that choice.

Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth; Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. Psalm 98:4

It frightens the enemy to hear our praise, that’s why he wants to silence us with the feeling of defeat. Watch what God will do. The joy of the Lord is our very strength but where’s the joy without a song? We’re not weak! Say you’re strong. Even if you don’t believe it! Eventually you will. I’m sure fighters talk to theirselves consistently or they know the enemy will talk them out of the fight that leads to defeat!

I’ve got a reason to sing, because Christ died and rose for, and lives in me.

We don’t serve a failing or weak God! He is worthy of our praise though our circumstances say otherwise. We must not give the enemy what He wants and sit down on the sidelines and perish, for our God sent His only begotten Son so that we might have life and have it more abundantly (not half way!). We were meant to be in the fight! It’s time we rise up out of the ashes and darkness by giving praise for what’s going to be brought to light!

He doesn’t want us to stay down and out! Reality is, He was crucified and brutally murdered and betrayed! He was the Ultimate Sacrifice but He was also made to be the example of what wickedness wants to do. But Good News is: the third days coming. You can’t keep a good man down. He’s living proof. But do you know that? Have you made Him Lord? Have we forgotten what He did? Are we down for the count? It’s time to get back up! He ascended into Heaven to be with God and promises to leave His Holy Spirit in you to empower you. We must take our power back and our rightful place. Too often we forget in all the complexity of life to go back to the simple but powerful truth of John 3:16, the core and foundation of it all. Christ died and rose for you! No one can take that away! Get back in the hood fight. Maybe you’ve been fighting it all wrong. It only works Gods way.

No matter who tries to hide or bury you. No matter what you’ve done or how far you’ve run. No matter how hidden or forgotten or left out you may feel. God sees you. He knows what’s been done to you and He has a way to not only deal with your enemies but to raise you back up to high positions. You’re more than what you’ve done or what’s been done to you. He already knew and died for you anyway. That’s the truth!

Jesus knew that He was going to the cross and didn’t let the fact stop Him. It’s not what He would have chosen but He knew what was going to happen afterwards. Victory! It didn’t seem good or feel good. And from the moment they took him to crucify Him, it didn’t seem like it would turn out good, that is for the next 3 days anyway. What might have taken years to add up to what now feels like the death or defeat of you, can be turned around and changed instantly! He’s still “rolling stones.” You’re more than what’s happened or been done to you.

You’re more than a conqueror because He conquered death and defeat. You’re more than an overcomes because He overcame! But you and I must believe this!

Jesus cared enough to stop by and help a man who was in a lowly position for 38 years. But instead of pitying the man, He challenged him. Otherwise He knew that he’d never get up but possibly stay like that another 38 years and eventually die that way! So He asked him what seemed to be the obvious, “do you really want to get well?” Jesus knew that this man had been like this for a long time and that he had to get a new belief system in his heart and a new mind set before He’d ever rise up out of his defeat. The man was waiting on someone else to do for him what only he could decide to do. So Jesus told him to rise up and walk. To pick up his mat. Sometimes we need a good dose of truth that we can. We must pick up what we’re laying on and the excuse and lie that’s kept us down for far too long so that we can move on. He loves you today much to let you stay that way! So He gives you truth in love.

Maybe we had a reason to be down but that season turned into a unnecessarily long Wilderness journey. Jesus had compassion on the man no doubt or He wouldn’t have stopped, but He didn’t pick him up or do it for him. He didn’t take it lightly and He didn’t coax him or tell him Pretty lies. No! That would have kept Him down. So He spoke truth in love with a challenge. He loved him too much to let him stay this way but the man did have a choice in the matter. The man had to first decide that it truly was what he wanted. And even though he felt passed by his whole life and that everyone else took his turn, it was his time to rise. This story is a hard one for me because I feel his pain.

It’s your turn to rise! It’s mine! As we remember this next week and even now before Easter Sunday WHAT JESUS DID FOR US BY TAKING OUR PLACE, we can be reminded that it was not in vain! None of it! He conquered it all and He left His Holy Spirit to indwell in us, empower us and for us to be guided by it, each and every single day of our lives.

Again, it wasn’t in vain. He loved us so much that He died for our very own sin. So it’s ashamed that I’d live any less than what He died to give! I got a reason to Sing. He reins and I want others to know and see that! I want to reflect that and live it and walk it out! We are His hands and feet. We are salt and lights. But if we lose our saltiness and flavor, we are bland and no one will want what we got! Unless we are shining the light that dwells on the inside then how we can we shine it out? The enemy wants to shut off our lights and snuff out our candles so that we won’t use what we’ve been given? If we don’t shine bright then we aren’t lighthouses leading others in! We aren’t pointing others to Him and doing good works for His glory unless we shine Him. The less emphasis I put on me , the more He can shine in me. When a candle begins to burn down, the flame rises higher.

We all go through dark times and seasons. God showed me years ago that a light shines brightest in the dark. I mean it’s simple. We live in a dark world. And sometimes it’s in our dark times that He comes in to shine what I otherwise wouldn’t have seen. People need our lights. We need to share in what we’ve been given.

It’s impossible for someone to see a bright light from a mile a way in the light to shine as brightly as they will see it in the dark. That’s why we have lights! To guide us in darkness. The light is pointing the way. It isn’t always an absent of dark! Where do we get our day song? From night songs! The word says that  weeping may endure for a night (season) but joy comes in the morning. With every sunset comes a sunrise. The suns coming up in the morning. Every single day with the sunrise new, so are His mercies new. So we must turn the page on yesterdays news and hurts. We must not only forgive others but ourselves so that we can shine or it’ll not only dull our lights but separate us from the Source of the light. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself. For the lie you believed, what you allowed or what you did! But it’s keeping you back from growing. It’s holding me hostage until I release forgiveness. Again, it’s all a war for our souls and attention, and that’s exactly what the enemy wants.

Guess what? A testimony don’t come without a test. Some of the greatest testimonies come from the greatest trials. Thank God that He don’t waste nothing. People need what you got! So we’re not going down for the count though we may be down for a while. Jesus got back up and so will we. Thank God that He is with me. He’s done marvelous things and I believe that He will keep doing marvelous things in you and in me. If we let Him. Let’s sing like we believe! We gotta race to win. We’re not giving up now, we’ve came to far to turn back. It’s the race of faith.

Hebrews 12

1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

So many other forerunners after Jesus have ran before us setting the example. We must set off every thing that entangles us (the sin of bitterness, self, unforgiveness, whatever that sin may be to you that trips you up from running your race well). Don’t hold back what He died to give. The enemy wants to hold us back with these things. We must not stop. We must endure.

God gives us resting breaks in-between and sometimes it feels like we can’t catch a break or that we will never win, but we will. As long as we have God on our side and His Spirit within. As long as we have accepted what Jesus did for us, in us and through us, we will Overcome. It’s not over till it’s over and we can’t stop till we’re finished. All I long to hear is well done and if I don’t truly believe that I’d hear that right now, then I’m not done. I must continue to run and grow. To continue to fight, but right. To put aside and behind me what is so easily tripping me up and entangling me. If He’s correcting me, it’s only because He loves me and wants to course correct me. Because you see, not every road leads home. He disciplines those who He loves and none of it seems pleasant at the time but it’s for a pleasant outcome.

The Father loves His children and doesn’t want us to quit, get out of the race or to be overcome, so He gave us a Holy Helper that we must receive and call upon. Like the man of 38 years, He won’t do it for us but He’s just waiting. I believe He’s saying “Don’t quit now. Do you really wanna get well?” Before that bell rings as in a boxing ring to determine the winner and loser, get back up before it’s too late. Don’t let the enemy and his lies keep you down. Kick him in his teeth with truth.

The truth is God loves you, He died for you and He doesn’t want you to stay down! Get up! Fight the good fight. Run and win the race. His death wasn’t in vain! Just as important as we remember His death being, so was His resurrection! He showed you that it’s more than possible to overcome. So when the enemy whispers you’re done, whisper back and remind him “He overcome and He’s living in me.”

“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4

The cross had the final say. And God your Father has your back. He’s in your corner and He is rooting for you. He’s already won the fight and made it possible for you. Sometimes all we gotta do is fight with a song. When the praise goes up, the power comes down. I gotta reason to sing. 🥊 🎶 I’ll fight him with a song!

Remember the enemy is a liar and don’t want you to win. God is love and truth and He already made a way. That’s the truth so no reason to quit. He overcame so that you would too. Amen.

John 10:10