Tag: shame

Man on the Middle Cross

The next entry for my Blog is Man on the Middle Cross, which was written by AJ Pruis, Matt Jenkins, Matthew West, and Rhett Walker.  It was first released July 21, 2023.  A link to Rhett Walker singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.


Heard the Preacher talking about three wood crosses
Up on a hill everyone to see
Two sinners on the outside couldn’t save themselves if they tried
All I could think is man that sounds like me

I’ve been the one on the left full of guilt and regret
Long gone on the wrong side of living
I’ve been the one on the right always looking for a fight thinking I could never be forgiving
I’m standing here today
Overwhelmed by grace cause I know who paid my cost
Thank God
for the man on the middle cross

He didn’t have to do it But for me it went thru it
A love like that I’ll never understand
Lord knows I don’t deserve it And I know I couldn’t earn it
Mercy rained down on this desperate man
 
The cross is where he went
But that ain’t where he stayed
He brought me back to life when He rose up out of that grave
Someday I’ll stand before him
See Jesus face to face
I’ll worship and adore him
For a life forever changed

Perhaps many of you reading this blog were not aware of the crosses that are spoken of in Christian religions, maybe some of you know about the cross Jesus died upon, and some of you may be familiar with the three crosses this song talks about.  The bible does indeed tell us there were three crosses together, with Jesus being on the center cross and felons on the other two crosses.  We find this in the book of Luke 23:33, “When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left.”   The mount where the crucifixion occurred was call Golgotha, which translates into the word skull from the Aramaic language.  As the preacher was delivering the message that the song writer heard, maybe it was the first time the writer had really listened to the scripture about the crosses.  So many times, we may be the same way, the message may be one we have been aware of for years, but we never allowed it to resonate in our life.  I believe most people who are aware of Jesus are probably aware that he died on a cross, but have little awareness of the fact that two criminals were also crucified on either side of him.  The good news is that Jesus came back to life after his death on the cross, but the two sinners on either side of him had no chance of returning to life on this earth,

Obviously, none of us are perfect and most, if not all of us, struggle to be the best person we can be every single day in our life.  The writer of the song assigns backgrounds to each of the two people on either side of Jesus, the purpose is so he can help show all of us how we may fit into the scenario.  How many times have you felt guilty about something?  Maybe your guilt is from long ago or maybe it is from a few hours ago; but how does it make you feel inside?  Sometimes I sit and reflect on the past and think about the things I should not have done and the people I may have hurt.  As I do this reflection, I think it was very insensitive of me to say what I said or act the way I did.  This is when we are similar to the person hanging on the cross on the left.  We realize where we have failed in our life and finally recognize that the acceptance of Jesus as our Lord and savior is the only way to gain eternal life.  We have come to the realization that we can never gain eternal life until we give our soul to Jesus.

Unfortunately, some of us are similar to the man on the other cross.  We are bitter, vindictive, and only care about ourselves.  In common vernacular, these types of people are recognized as hardened criminals who are unwilling to ever change.  We go about our lives without even thinking about who we hurt.  The hurt we inflict may be emotional, violent, physical, or destructive.  The goal is to gain whatever we can without even considering the damage we cause along the way.  We form the opinion that because we believe that no one loves us or cares for us anyway, why should be act any different.  Our most secure prisons are most likely filled with people of this mentality.  There are also many people roaming the streets today who have the same mindset of if I want it, I will take it and are willing to harm anyone who gets in their way.  This is perhaps the mindset of the man on the cross on the other side of Jesus.  We find the scripture about the two criminals in the book of Luke 23:39-43, “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”  But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Regardless of which camp of people we fall into, God views us all as disobedient to him.  He doesn’t evaluate us based on the wrongs/sins we have committed; he just knows that we have not accepted his son as our savior.  He also knows we are walking through a world that we can’t control and that we feel all alone with no hope.  All of us are on the first cross I mentioned above at all times and some of us cross over to the other cross if we wander too far away from where we should be.  This takes us to the middle cross, where Jesus, the son of God, was hanging.  He died on that cross and when he died that day, he gave us grace.  Grace basically means that if we accept him as the son of God and his sacrifice for us, then all of the wrongs we have committed in our past and all of the wrongs we will commit in the future have been forgiven.  God then views us as a perfect being and no longer sees the blemishes we gathered over a lifetime.  This is basically what transpired with the criminal the writer depicted as being on the left side of the three crosses.  It doesn’t mean we will be perfect in our actions and thoughts every day, but it does mean that we have an eternal life in front of us as we traverse the way to heaven.

Just imagine someone loving you so much that they would lay down their life for you.  I can’t even begin to imagine what it will be like to finally see Jesus face to face and worship him and thank him for dying for me and coming back to life just to help me realize that he truly is the son of God.  The cross couldn’t kill his spirit, the tomb could not contain his body, and nothing on earth could stop him from walking among his disciples three days after he came out of that tomb.

Which of the people on the cross would you most likely be if you were on Golgotha that fateful day?  Would you be the one who believed in Christ or the one who rejected him?  Now is probably a good time to do a self-assessment to determine the priorities in your life and where Christ fits.  We will all face death one day, we just don’t know when.  The good news is that we can decide today on which cross we would have hung long ago.

Click to Hear Rhett Walker Sing Man On The Middle Cross

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

Red Letters

The next entry for my Blog is Red Letters, which was written by David Crowder and Ed Cash.  It was first released in September 19, 2018.  A link to Crowder singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

Red Letters


There I was on death row
Guilty in the first degree
Son of God hanging on a hill
Hell was my destiny

The crowd was shouting crucify
Could’ve come from these lips of mine
The dirty shame was killing me
It would take a miracle to wash me clean

Then I read the red letters
And the ground began to shake
The prison walls started falling
And I became a free man that day

Felt like lightning hit my veins
My dead heart began to beat
Breath of God filled my lungs
And the Holy Ghost awakened me
Yeah, the Holy Ghost awakened me

When I read the red letters
And the ground began to shake
The prison walls started falling
And I became a free man that day

For God so loved the whole wide world
Sent His only Son to die for me
Arms spread wide for the whole wide world
His arms spread wide where mine should be
Jesus changed my destiny

Thank You, God, for red letters
When the ground began to shake
The grace of God started falling
And I became a free man that day
The prison walls started falling
And I am a free man today

The title of this song is kind of interesting, especially without context.  Probably most of the Christian bibles bought today have the standard black print, but there are bibles you can buy that show all of the words of Jesus in red. 

Have you ever thought about the fact that without Jesus coming and dying on the cross, it would be extremely difficult to get into heaven?  Before the coming of Christ and his death, people could still have the promise of heaven, but it required a lot more work and dedication.  The people had to make sacrifices on a regular basis; since there was no bible the people had to go to the temples just to hear God’s word and his promises that were made over the thousands of years since the time of creation.  So many people had no hope because they felt as if they had failed God and they did not know where to turn.  It is true there were great leaders and that God’s word and promises had been passed down for thousands of years; but that isn’t the same as hearing from those who saw and touched the hand of God’s only son.

All of the above is basically a lead into the song.  Imagine that you were sitting home reading your bible, even though you were not a Christian and dreamed you were teleported back in time; to the time of Jesus walking around the streets of Jerusalem.  As you look up on that mount called Calvary, you start to realize the things you had done wrong all your life.  You see the stories you had heard at church suddenly come true.  The savior, who you have maybe heard about in church or read about in your bible, is hanging on the cross.  You had heard about him and his teachings and you had heard people talking about how he was just another false prophet, but you suddenly realize you were one of them.  In the process, you have become yet another conspirator contributing to the death of God’s only son.  For this, you are guilty of murder and should be behind bars.  You were so caught up in the actions of the crowd that you may have been one of the ones yelling to crucify him.  Shame takes its toll on you and you begin to believe there is no hope for you; how could there be since your own rejection of Christ contributed to him dying on the cross.

As you take the time to reflect on the above, it starts to hurt deep inside when you begin to understand that you have rejected the love of Christ all of your life and perhaps led others to do the same.  Suddenly you come out of your nightmarish dream and your bible is still in your lap, but it suddenly has new meaning as you see the words of Christ written in red letters. It is almost as if the words are jumping off the page at you.  You are suddenly aware that you have been in a walled prison your entire life, constrained by your own words and actions.  As the reality of the life Christ is offering in those red letters sinks in, your world crumbles and you finally understand that Christ died for you so you could spend eternity with him.  There is no wall of sin separating you from him any longer and you are no longer burdened by your past.  You are finally a free man, your shackles of sin, guilt, and despair have been taken away.  As you begin to let the fact that Jesus erased all of your sins sink in, it is as if you have been given a brand new start in life.  It is true that the memories and pain of your past may never go away, but Jesus forgives all of our past and gives us a future.  Jesus never focuses on who we were, he only looks at who we will become.  All you had to do was accept him as your personal savior.  You have now taken your first breath of true freedom and clean slate in the eyes of Jesus.

John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  Can you imagine giving up your own son for a world full of sinners and unbelievers?  I agree that it should have been us stretching our arms and dying on that cross, we are the sinners; not Jesus.  But God loved us so much that he gave the only perfect being we will ever know to die in agony on the cross.  It took the perfect to die to enable the imperfect to gain eternal life.  With his death, our future can be changed forever; all we have to do is accept his sacrifice.   Thanks to God’s grace and his willingness to forgive every wrong we have committed or are yet to commit; we will spend eternity with Jesus.

Have you ever closely looked for the red letters, the words of Jesus in your bible?

Click to Hear Crowder Perform Red Letters

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Come As You Are – Entry #3 of 5

Today I will focus on the following part of the song, only a couple of lines but a lot to cover.

So lay down your burdens
Lay down your shame

Have you ever stopped to think about all of the burdens you might be carrying? The basic definition of a burden is that it is a heavy load that slows us down or drags us down in some way. Maybe we do not have a single massive burden such as an oxen might carry, but we have a lot of smaller things we carry that end up being a burden. We have a tendency to carry the past around with us, we carry worry about things we cannot change, we worry about our family, we are concerned about the future. Any one of these is a heavy load, but when combined they become a massive burden that none of us are able to manage. The end result is we make no progress on any of these because all of our time, energy, and spirit are spread across all of these worries. The only way we can make any progress and see that there is a future for us, is to take these burdens and drop them at the feet of Jesus.

Worry is the heaviest burden for most of us and Jesus addresses this for us in Matthew 6:25-34, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I realize this is a long passage of scripture, but if our greatest burden is worry; then it seems appropriate.

Part of the burden of the past we carry is shame and is also a burden of the present. We have hurt someone, we have not helped someone when we know we should have, and we are ashamed of certain actions that we took that were not appropriate. Perhaps we are ashamed to face God in our prayers because we did not stand up for him when we should have. We encounter situations where we should have spoken up and called out the wrong that was taking place, but we kept quiet. I am not suggesting that we put ourselves in a threatening situation, sometimes we send a message by walking away or perhaps standing alone for what we believe is God’s direction for us. If you think of your earthly father, isn’t it hard to tell him that you did not stand up for him today when people were criticizing him, laughing at him, and maybe not being willing to say in public how much you love him? We would be ashamed of ourselves, and we should feel the same way when we do not support our heavenly father. But all we need to do is confess our sins to him and he will forgive them, he does not want a wall between us at any time. He knows we are ashamed and that we were weak, but he still forgives us and loves us unconditionally. Remember that even the Apostle Peter denied Christ openly three times, yet he was forgiven and ended up becoming a strong leader of the early church.

What burdens and shame are you carrying that you need to give to the father so you can feel the peace that passeth all understanding? What is keeping you from letting go?

Redeemed – Entry #3 of 4

This Blog entry will address the following lines, the next Blog will complete this song:

All my life I have been called unworthy
Named by the voice of my shame and regret
But when I hear You whisper, “Child lift up your head”
I remember oh God, You’re not done with me yet

Do you ever feel unworthy? Perhaps we have been called unworthy as the song states, but perhaps we are the ones who tell ourselves we are unworthy. I believe we have a tendency to equate failure with unworthiness. By definition, unworthy means not deserving of attention or respect, not deserving of acceptance, and not suitable. People often feel they are unworthy because of failures. Maybe we did make a mistake on our job, does that mean we are unworthy of that job? We may feel as if we did a bad job as a parent, does that mean we are unworthy of being a parent? Our last relationship may have ended in an ugly way, does that mean we are unworthy of a positive lasting relationship? More of these questions and doubts come from inside us and from Satan as he tries to discourage us. We berate ourselves over what we have done wrong, where we have failed, and therefore give Satan a stronger hold over us. He is always there speaking in our ear and telling us how unworthy we are and reminding us of all of our failures. He does whatever he can to get us to listen to him and his voice of shame and regret and to keep us from listening to the Holy Spirit Christ has given us. It doesn’t mean we have lost our faith in Christ, it means we are trying to drive our lives instead of looking to our Savior for guidance, support, and love. We are hanging our heads as we go through our woe is me life perspective. The net is we end up serving the wrong master, even though our soul belongs to Jesus based on our salvation. All of this is so easy to say and we all end up in this place at some time, but how do we get out?

Once again, the songwriters tell how Christ reaches out to us and reminds us that he is always there. He is the one who whispers in our ear and tell us to be strong and hold up our head. This may be a whisper, but it is one that comes across with power. Our Savior and Comforter tells us to lift up our head and remember what he did for us so we could have eternal happiness and reward. Note that we are called his child, we are always one of his; regardless of the situation we are facing. This loud and resonating whisper brings us to our knees as we remember that we are always a work in progress and will never achieve perfection in our physical lives. God’s plan for us takes us through this lifetime on earth, he has things he wants us to do. There are so many things in his plan that requires action from us. He is always preparing and training us for the tasks ahead. Maybe he wants us to bring a neighbor to Christ, perhaps he brings a stranger to us that he wants us to help, maybe he wants us to be a stronger light to all of those around us. He could be looking at us to work in the church, to be part of missions, to work with children, or work in a service capacity. We need to always remember we may be the only Jesus some people will ever see. The world watches us every day to see how we respond as Christians. Our actions and our words determine the strength of our light in this world. To be what God wants us to be, we need to grow our faith and witness every day. I know the above is a daunting path but think of what Christ has done for us and what lies ahead of us. Are the expectations of God greater than the reward? I don’t think so.