How Long Has It Been

The next entry for my Blog is How Long Has it Been.  It was written by Mosie Lister and was first released in 1956.  A link to Jim Reeves singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

How long has it been since you talked with the Lord
And told him your heart’s hid in secrets?
How long since you prayed?
How long since you stayed on your knees till the light shone through?

How long has it been since your mind felt at ease?
How long since your heart knew no burden?
Can you call him your friend?
How long has it been since you knew that he cared for you?

How long has it been since you knelt by your bed
And prayed to the Lord up in heaven?
How long since you knew that he’d answer you
And would keep you the long night through?

How long has it been since you woke with the dawn
And felt this day is worth living?
Can you call him your friend?
How long has it been since you knew that he cared for you?..

This is a song that came to me a short time ago and it delivers such a powerful message.  You may have never heard it before since it is an older song and you may not have seen or heard the lyrics, but it is such a great reminder for each of us who believes in a loving and powerful God.

I am sure that most of us probably have very engaging lives.  We may be busy with jobs, family, friends, sports, neighborhood activities, and just life in general.  The net is that at the end of the day, we are just ready to find that special spot in our homes and relax with those who are special in our lives.  Maybe you make it to church occasionally, maybe you read your bible as time permits, and you probably say a few prayers along the way to help you through the challenges of life.  This song has one simple question, “how long has it been” since you talked to the Lord, the most important being in your life?

For those of you who worship God, how much time do you give him every day?  When was the last time you spoke to God and just poured your heart out to him?  I think probably all of us have friends and family we confide in, but are there some things deep inside that we just really don’t want to talk about even though we would probably feel better if we did.  I have some wonderful friends, but there are some things that I never share with them.  Maybe it is because I am ashamed of something in my past or maybe it is just something I just don’t want to share since I am afraid of what people may think of me.  God is the one being you can turn to who will cast no judgement for what you have done, he will never betray your secret, and he will keep his arms wrapped around you even in your deepest darkest moments of despair.  So many people are concerned about how they talk to God.  The simple answer to this is that you talk to God the same as you would your very best friend.  He is the one person whom you can share everything with and who will cast no judgement upon you.  He is the best listener you could ever hope for and even better, he is always there and available to us. When you talk to God, there is no time limit; he is not on a schedule and is there for you every minute.  As you start talking to God and baring your soul to him, you will be amazed at how long your conversations last.  You will feel his responses in your heart and mind, not with your ears.  Many times, you may have a quick prayer with him, and then there are other times when you fall on your knees and talk to him almost all night.  Our talks can be a combination of praise and thanks, and they can also be personal needs or for the needs of others. When you are at the bed of a loved one who is nearing the end of their days, you may very well pray through the night since God will not interrupt you and he can feel the pain we are feeling.  At the end of a heart felt prayer, you can feel God’s love and almost feel his arms wrapped around you

I believe we all experience times in our lives when we can seemingly find no peace, there is something that is constantly weighing us down.  Do you have those times?  Maybe you have things going on in your life that just drag you down emotionally and ultimately physically as well.  In these times, it is almost as if your burdens get heavier and heavier and you just can’t take the emotional load any longer.  What you really need is to have someone to help offload the burdens and give you some relief.  Did you know that Jesus, the son of God, is that one friend who can bring you true relief?  In the book of Matthew, 11:28-30 he tells us he will carry our burdens for us.  “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”   When you think about friends, what role do they play in your life?  We spend fun time with friends, we share each other’s burdens, and we live life together; but even though we have these wonderful friends, they can never give us the love and peace that Jesus can.  The disciples first started with Jesus as servants and he was their teacher, but in the book of John 15:15, he tells them they are not servants, they are his friends.   “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you”Take a moment and let that sink in.  Jesus, the son of God, has just called his disciples, his followers; friends. Our friends and family love us and want the best for us, but they can never love us as much as Jesus.  When you take the time to pray, talk to Jesus as your very best friend, he is always there to listen and to guide.  He is the friend above all friends and he alone knows your deepest hurts and needs.  He is always there for you.  I know it is different sitting with friends who you can see and touch, but Jesus touches and heals you from the inside.

I can remember seeing books with prayers in them and so many times the front of the book had a picture of someone on their knees praying.  It is absolutely true that you can pray anywhere and anytime and God hears our prayers, but there just seems to be something special about being on our knees when we pray.  Personally, I think it is a way to symbolize our complete devotion to him.  When was the last time you were on your knees in prayer?  If you have been on your knees in prayer before, think about what caused you to get into this position of absolute submission.  Maybe this is a way to help you feel closer to God.  Maybe you were in a room praying by yourself with no distractions around and you began to feel the love of God coming across your heart and soul as you feel his touch while he listens to you. It is in these quiet still moments when we can bare our souls to God, knowing that he answers all prayers in his time.  When we rise from our knees, feel a burden that has either been lifted or is now shared and that we are not alone.  Please know that I understand that everyone can’ get on their knees, the main message is to humble yourself before God.

As you experience these deep times of prayer and conversation with our God, time can pass very quickly.  When you finally stop your prayer and sharing time with him, you may see those first rays of sunlight starting to peek above the horizon.  Your one-on-one prayer time should become something you look forward to everyday.  Of course, you can pray any time and any day, but the dedicated time is so special.  Take some time now and think about how often you pray to God for help, how often you pray and give him thanks.  Every day with God is a day worth living.

How long has it been…..

  Click to Hear Jim Reeves Sing How Long Has it Been

Glorious Day

The next entry for my Blog is Glorious Day, which was written by Jason Ingram, Jonathan Smith, Kristian Stanfill, and Sean Curran.  It was first released 2017.  A link to Passion singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

Glorious Day


I was buried beneath my shame
Who could carry that kind of weight?
It was my tomb
‘Til I met You

I was breathing, but not alive
All my failures I tried to hide
It was my tomb
‘Til I met You

You called my name
Then I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day

Now Your mercy has saved my soul
Now Your freedom is all that I know
The old made new
Jesus, when I met You, whoa, what a day

When you called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
You called my name
Then I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day

I needed rescue
My sin was heavy
But chains break at the weight of Your glory
I needed shelter
I was an orphan
But You call me a citizen of Heaven
When I was broken
You were my healing
Now Your love is the air that I’m breathing
I have a future
My eyes are open

‘Cause when you called my name
I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day
You called my name
And I ran out of that grave
Out of the darkness
Into Your glorious day

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed and ashamed of some of the things you have done?   Maybe you hurt a friend or a loved one, perhaps they forgave you; but the shame of the hurt you caused just seems to stay with you.  Perhaps you have a storied past due your poor decisions or involvement in activities you knew were wrong.  Some of these past actions may cross your mind as you first wake up and start your day; you think about what you did to others as well as what you have done to yourself.  Where can you run, hide, and just escape your past?  This entire scenario has become your tomb.  We know from the bible that Christ was in a tomb with a very large stone rolled across the opening so that no one could get in and it was thought he couldn’t get out especially with two Roman guards standing outside the tomb.  Maybe your guilt and your shame has become just like the tomb Christ was in.  One of the big differences is that Christ was dead and placed in his tomb, but you are alive and living in your own self-created tomb.  Everything that has happened to put you in this situation was caused by your actions.  Take a few minutes and think about that analogy.  Yours is a self-created tomb, and although you are breathing, you are not really alive; you are mentally locked up and have no way to move that massive stone in front of your tomb.  Then, something happened that changed your whole world, the stone began to roll away.

The something that happened is that you heard about the man called Jesus, the son of God.  You heard about how he forgave sins and gave people new life; even those locked up in their own self-made tombs.  Here are the words Jesus said about the burdens we carry that led us into our tomb, it is from Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  Once you have accepted Jesus as your personal savior, he is there to take away your burdens.  Not only does he take them away, he forgives you from every wrong you have committed your entire life.  Once this happened, you ran out of your tomb and were able to face the world again.  You run out of that tomb as fast as you can into the waiting arms of Jesus.  You no longer have the darkness in your soul that light could never penetrate.  Jesus had been there all of the time, calling your name, and you finally heard him.  It is truly a glorious day as you feel the joy that only he can bring.

God could have let all of us live without the hope of salvation or spending eternity with him, but he loved us enough to send his only son to die for all of our wrongdoings.   Even as he knew his son was dying on the cross, he still loved us and was willing to forgive us for everything we had done wrong in our lives, as well as any transgressions we would commit in the future.  This is what mercy is all about.  He gave his only son to die so that we could have eternal life with him.  Jesus gave his physical life for us and all God asks of us is that we accept this offering of love so that we can spend eternity with him.   There is no greater gift than the gift of eternal life.  As the song says, we are now a brand-new person with a fresh start once we have Jesus.  We walk out of a world of despair into a world of hope and a life with a future.  I think the phrase in the song “whoa, what a day”, is such a simple way to describe what happens when Jesus enters our life; it is hard to put the emotion into words.

The first step in finding the light and love of Jesus is recognizing that you indeed need to be rescued; he can’t rescue us if we are not ready to be rescued.  The heavy chains of our sinful past get heavier and heavier every passing day, and we reach what we believe is the point of no return in our lives.  The chains have become too heavy to bear and we fall into a sense of hopelessness and despair. We finally reach out to Jesus and he frees us from our bondage and brings us into the light of his glory.  Maybe we felt as if we were alone during our misery and that we had no home and no family.  Jesus takes us in as part of his family and he introduces us to our eternal heavenly father.  He has healed our broken spirit, he has brought light into our world again, and you feel his love wrapped around you.  In addition to all of these amazing things he has done, he makes a promise/commitment to us, we find this in John 14:1-4; “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

As you stop and reflect on all of the above, I hope you have taken the opportunity to run out of that grave you have been living in and that you have begun rejoicing in that Glorious Day.  It is never too late.

Click to Hear Passion Sing Glorious Day

Fear is a Liar

The next entry for my Blog is Fear is a Liar, which was written by Jason Ingram, Jonathan Smith, and Zach Williams.  It was first released January 19, 2018.  A link to the Zach Williams singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog. 

Fear is a Liar

When he told you you’re not good enough
When he told you you’re not right
When he told you you’re not strong enough
To put up a good fight
When he told you you’re not worthy
When he told you you’re not loved
When he told you you’re not beautiful
That you’ll never be enough

Fear, he is a liar
He will take your breath
Stop you in your steps
Fear, he is a liar
He will rob your rest
Steal your happiness
Cast your fear in the fire
‘Cause fear he is a liar

When he told you were troubled
You’ll forever be alone
When he told you Cause should run away
You’ll never find a home
When he told you you were dirty
And you should be ashamed
When he told you you could be the one
That grace could never change

Fear, he is a liar
He will take your breath
Stop you in your steps
Fear, he is a liar
He will rob your rest
Steal your happiness
Cast your fear in the fire
‘Cause fear he is a liar

Let Your fire fall and cast out all my fears
Let Your fire fall Your love is all I feel

Let Your fire fall and cast out all my fears
Let Your fire fall Your love is all I feel

Let Your fire fall and cast out all my fears
Let Your fire fall Your love is all I feel

Oh, let Your fire fall and cast out all my fears
Let Your fire fall Your love is all I feel

Oh, fear he is a liar
He will take your breath
Stop you in your steps
Fear he is a liar
He will rob your rest
Steal your happiness
Cast your fear in the fire
‘Cause fear he is a liar

‘Cause fear he is a liar

Do you ever feel as if you are in a deep dark hole with no way out?  It seems as if there is some sort of roadblock in every direction.  Eventually, we tend to lose our confidence and sometimes withdraw into ourselves and keep everyone else out of our lives.  I believe this song does a good job of describing this situation.  It is as if there is someone else inside our mind or body who is always telling us that we will never succeed in anything we do, we are just a total failure at everything.  Are there times when you have felt as if you are were not good enough?  Maybe you felt as if you were not good enough for someone else to love and are afraid to express your feelings to that special someone.  This special person fell in love with someone else and you never even told them how you felt about them because you were afraid of rejection or ridicule.  Everywhere we turn, we feel rejected and become afraid in every aspect of our lives.  We are not as intelligent as others, we are not as beautiful as others, we begin to wonder why anyone would fall in love with us since we are not worthy of love and respect.  Wow, this is really depressing and may not seem real but it really happens to many people.  Maybe it leads to a life filled with “what ifs” or even worse, results in suicide.

Now that have I painted a gloomy picture; it is time to identify where these feelings come from; they are the results of fear.  Satan, the devil, the evil one; is constantly whispering in our ear and getting into our heads.  Satan’s goal is to disrupt and destroy our lives.  The bible in 1 Peter 5:8 says, “the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”  He can stop us dead in our tracks, he can destroy our confidence, and take away our hopes and dreams.  The bad news is that Satan and his minions are always after us and lie to us about who we are.  The more we listen to him, the deeper into the abyss we fall.  As the chorus tells us, we need to take this fear of gloom and doom that he whispers in our ear and kick him out of our lives.  He is a liar, a cheat, and a failure.  He is the one that was not good enough to defeat the almighty God in the battle for heaven and was banished to this earth.  All of these bad things you are thinking about yourself are a direct result of trusting in these voices as opposed to turning your heart and mind over to God.

The first verse depicts Satan, via fear, attacking our personal qualities.  The next verse is how Satan tries to negate the possible actions of God in our lives.  Not only does our view of our own self-image affect us emotionally, but it also impacts how we interact with other people.  Since we are so afraid to engage with others due to our lack of confidence and self-esteem and fear of rejection, we resign ourselves to the feeling that we will always be alone and lonely.  We wish we could run away from it all, but where can we run when there is no one who is willing to hold us and bring us peace?  Our lives are ruined and worthless and we are convinced that we are sentenced to a life of shame and sadness.  The even worse news is that we have the feeling there is absolutely nothing that even God can do for us; we are too far gone to be brought back to the light of hope.

The writers do a good job depicting how much impact fear and Satan have on our lives and some of you may believe this is your life today.  The good news is that although we all may have many of the feelings portrayed in this song, we have a way out.  The path from this darkness to the bright and shining light is accepting Jesus, the son of God, as your personal savior.  God sent his son to die for all of us and to forgive all of the wrongs in our lives and guarantee us an eternal home with him.  The song references grace; in the Christian bible, grace is defined as getting a gift we don’t deserve.  A word also used frequently with the word grace is the word mercy.  Mercy is not getting the punishment we deserve.  When Jesus died for us, God essentially forgave us for everything we have ever done wrong and there will be no punishment from him.  The only requirement is you must accept his son Jesus as your own personal savior.   We are told this in the book of John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  As you take this step, all of the wrongs in your life are forgiven by God and you have a father who loves you.  Yes, we will still have our moments where we do things we shouldn’t, but he is always with us to offer us encouragement and forgiveness and to get us back on the right path. 

As you get closer to God and farther away from the great deceiver, your life begins to change.  You start to feel a love and comfort you have never felt before.  Perhaps the greatest thing is the feeling that you are never alone.  God made you as one of his creations and he made each of us as individuals.  He loves us even more than we can even imagine.  There is an old hymn, “In the Garden”, that talks about how God walks with us and talks with us and reminds us of how we belong to him.  It is a song that can bring joy to your heart and reinforces the fact that we are never alone.  As you realize that God is part of your life and that his love can never be taken away, you have a new hope in your life.  It is almost as if you are able to see that bright sunshine on your face whenever you think of him.  Every time you see a rainbow, you will remember that God gave us the rainbow as a promise of his love.  If you are someone who has been losing the battle to the devil and now realize you have God’s power over him; go out and face your new world.  A world filled with love, hope, friendship, and a bright new future.  You will no longer be afraid to open your heart to friends, loved ones, that special someone, and you might start looking at new adventures in your life.  If you have some time available, listen to the song I mentioned above or even take a look at my Blog entry for the song.

The devil and fear are absolutely the best liars, but God is love and offers us eternity and is with always with us.  The book of Joshua 1:9 reminds us of God’s promise of faithfulness, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Click to Hear Zach Williams Sing Fear is a Liar