jason ingram – Song Dive

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

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

God of All My Days

The next entry for my Blog is God of All My Days, which was written by Mark Hall and Jason Ingram. It was first released by Casting Crowns in 2016. A link to Casting Crowns singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

God of All My Days

I came to You with my heart in pieces
And found the God with healing in His hands
I turned to You, put everything behind me
And found the God who makes all things new
I looked to You, drowning in my questions
And found the God who holds all wisdom
And I trusted You and stepped out on the ocean
You caught my hand among the waves
‘Cause You’re the God of all my days

Each step I take
You make a way
And I will give You all my praise
My seasons change, You stay the same
You’re the God of all my days

I ran from You, I wandered in the shadows
And found a God who relentlessly pursues
I hid from You, haunted by my failure
And found the God whose grace still covers me
I fell on You when I was at my weakest
And found the God, the lifter of my head
And I’ve worshiped You
And felt You right beside me
You’re the reason that I sing
‘Cause You’re the God of all my days

Each step I take
You make a way
And I will give You all my praise
My seasons change, You stay the same
You’re the God of all my days

In my worry, God You are my stillness
In my searching, God You are my answers
In my blindness, God You are my vision
In my bondage, God You are my freedom
In my weakness, God You are my power
You’re the reason that I sing
‘Cause You’re the God of all my days

Each step I take
You make a way
And I will give You all my praise
My seasons change, You stay the same
You’re the God of all my days

In my blindness, God You are my vision
And in my bondage, God You are my freedom
All my days

Have you ever had one of those OOPS moments when you broke something and it seemingly shattered into a gazillion pieces? Maybe it was an antique, maybe a valuable piece of pottery, a special heirloom, or maybe just someone’s extra special coffee cup. How did you feel when this happened, knowing there was nothing you could do about what happened? This sort of thing happens to your heart as well. Maybe you feel as if life has dealt you a bad hand and no matter what you do, you just can’t seem to come out of that deep dark abyss. Perhaps you feel this way because of relationship issues, losing a loved one, family problems, job problems, or maybe addiction problems. You begin to feel as if your heart is never going to be whole again and that there will never be joy in your life again. I believe all of the above is the core of where this song begins.

The only way we can have a healed heart is to put our lives into the hands of Christ, since only he can heal our shattered heart and help us keep going. It is true we will still have those painful memories and the scars of life, but putting our hearts in his hands allows us to have hope for the future. We have a fresh start on the future as he forgives our past. He gives us something to look forward to; an eternity with him and all of our fellow believers. We all live a life of unanswered questions, we want to know why, when, how, what if…….. These questions are all part of our daily lives and we don’t have the answers, but the good news is that God knows the answers to all of our questions. Part of our daily prayers should be asking God questions about whatever is on our mind. Sometimes we get answers to some questions right away and other times God brings us peace until he is ready to answer our question. Only he has the wisdom we need and the ability to overcome our impatience, if we just completely rely on him. I realize this is easier said than done because of our human nature, but try putting all of your questions and anxieties in his hands and experience his love and his peace.

The writer describes us as being in an ocean and we are struggling just to survive. This ocean pounding with waves, represents the struggles of life and they tend to suck us down every single day. As we cry out to God, hold out our hand to God, and give him our life; he grabs our hand and pulls us out of the waves. All of a sudden our life on that daily stormy ocean shifts to life on a peaceful lake. The wavy days are still out there as we forget our way, but God will always be there to put us back on the calm waters if we just reach out to him. He is the God of all of our days and is with us every day of our life even when we are ignoring him and forgetting about him.

No matter where we are physically, mentally, or emotionally God is there with us to hold our hand and guide us down the right path. Only he knows the right path for us and only he can keep us on the path where we belong. Everyday, our lives change in some way as we experience new events that impact us. We also go through stages of life such as youth, marriage, children, grandchildren, retirement, loss of a loved one; yet God is there to help us through every phase of our life and the troubles we face each step along the way. We constantly change over the course of our life, but God never changes. We lose our focus and we lose our way, but God is always laser focused on our path and on our journey; he knows the future of each of us. As the writer states, we should praise him every step of the way.

We spend a lot of our lives just running away from God. We are ashamed because of the things we have done; we are ashamed of not praying as we should, and we feel weak if we can’t handle things on our own. There are times when we are so disappointed in ourselves and who we have become. What we fail to realize is that God has never turned his back on us and that he stays with us and keeps holding out his open arms to us; he never ever gives up on us and never holds our failures over our heads. He only asks that we love him and accept his son as our personal savior. As bad as we have been or as neglectful we have been in our relationship with God; his overwhelming love for us never changes. He is always there to help us lift our heads and look ahead to the future instead of the past, knowing that he will never leave us or forsake us. We worship God because he is the only one who never lets us down, who forgives and forgets all of our wrongdoings, and the only one who can give us eternal life. Have you ever sung a Christian song or hymn and all of sudden you can just feel the presence and love of God? I get chills just thinking about those times when I strongly sense the presence of my Lord, there is no other experience like it. Psalm 98:4-6 encourages to sing, “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn, shout for joy before the Lord, the King.” A lot of us may say we can’t sing, but keep in mind that it is the Lord who gave us our voice and our talents and all of our songs are music to him.

Take a close look at the last verse of the song which gives us examples of when we need God and what he gives us as we call out to him. If you listen to the song via the link below, listen with your heart as you are reminded of what God has for us. The list of what he gives can never be captured in a Blog, a book, a library or a song. He gives us peace, the answers we seek, light in the darkness, freedom from the bondage of the dark world, and power that we cannot begin to fully comprehend. Isaiah 40:31 reminds us of what God can do in our lives if we only let him: “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

He is not just the God of our past, our good days, and our bad days; he is God of all of our days from the day we were born and for eternity.

Click to Hear Casting Crowns Sing God of All My Days

You Say

The next song for my Blog is a song that was written by Paul Mabury, Lauren Ashley Daigle, and Jason Ingram. It was first released in July, 2018. A link to Lauren Daigle performing the song is at the bottom of this Blog entry.

You Say

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I’m not enough
Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up
Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low?
Remind me once again just who I am, because I need to know (ooh oh)

You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
You say I am held when I am falling short
When I don’t belong, oh You say I am Yours
And I believe (I), oh I believe (I)
What You say of me (I)
I believe

The only thing that matters now is everything You think of me
In You I find my worth, in You I find my identity, (ooh oh)

You say I am loved when I can’t feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
And You say I am held when I am falling short
When I don’t belong, oh You say I am Yours
And I believe (I), oh I believe (I)
What You say of me (I)
Oh, I believe

Taking all I have and now I’m laying it at Your feet
You have every failure God, You’ll have every victory, (ooh oh)

Occasionally we all get the feeling that perhaps we are not good enough. The feeling may come because of something someone said, a failure we have experienced, or someone rejecting us; with the bottom line being we just feel discouraged, unloved, and defeated. We begin to question ourselves, our abilities, and perhaps even our faith; we just feel vulnerable in all aspects of our life. These are times when we let Satan and the distractions of the world take over our lives, and it just seems so hard to quit listening to word “failure” as it dominates our thoughts. We may reach a point at which we believe we will never be able to become what we thought we could be.

There are also days when we are on the other end of the spectrum, we may feel on top of the world. Maybe we got a promotion, found out a child is on the way, an illness was cured, or maybe a special person entered our life. These are some of the greatest times in our life and seemingly erase the bad days in the blink of an eye. These are times of our lives that we live for. Wouldn’t it be great if we could stay in this euphoric phase, where all of the bad has disappeared? I believe this is something we all long for, but with the evils in the world and the external influences they bring; we end up living the rollercoaster of life’s highs and lows. We long for peace and normalcy and sometimes forget that our heart and eternity belong to God and he is the one who really holds our life in his hands. The problem is, we sometimes forget this while on the rollercoaster of life. We eventually reach that point of reaching out to God for help, and as we open our hearts to him; he reminds us of who we are, who he is, why we are here, and what eternal life really means.

The chorus in this song helps us to understand what God can and will do for us at all times. He knows what we need before we even ask. He knows that one of the greatest needs we have is to be loved; isn’t love one of the most wonderful feelings we can ever have? It is such a wonderful feeling to be loved by our families, our friends, by little children, and especially by that one person we adore and love the most. Even in those times when we feel alone, feel as if the world is collapsing around us, and someone has hurt us; have you stopped to think that the love of God is still there with you and is as strong as it has always been and always will be? Even though we do not feel the love coming from those in the world into our lives, God is always there, is always loving us, and always has his arms around us. Romans 8:39 tells us:
Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.

As we face the challenges and defeats in our lives, we believe we are no longer strong enough to face the challenges that confront us every day. Our effort to push back becomes weaker as we give up on our hopes and dreams. We seem to forget that we serve an all-powerful God that loves his children and is there to provide them with all of the strength they need and more. He is always there to put his arms around us and protect us from whatever the world throws at us. Yes, there will be emotional pain and physical pain in our lives, but nothing in this world is strong enough to overcome the strength and love that God provides. He alone made the ultimate sacrifice to give us eternal life, along with that gift comes his protection since he wants us to spend eternity with him. Along with the sacrifice he made for us, he gave us the promise of eternal love and of an eternal family that would always love us. We are reminded of his protection in Deuteronomy 31:6

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.

As we finally stop and open our hearts to God, we start to realize that we are not measured by this world or the opinions of others. It is during this time we remember what salvation is all about and how we should focus on what God wants us to do with our lives; not what we want to do with our lives. We face the challenge of doing God’s will and not our will. As imperfect people, we will not be able to defeat all of the temptations of this world; but we can be assured we are never alone and have all the strength we need to carry forward every day of our lives. We just need to believe in what God has promised us and know he will never abandon his children. It is time to lay all of our burdens, our defeats, and our failures at the feet of God. He will turn all of these into victories we could never have imagined.

You are never alone when you believe and accept the love of Christ.

Click to See Lauren Daigle Perform You Say