I Give You My Heart / This is My Desire

The next entry for my Blog is I Give You My Heart / This is My Desire, written by Reuben Morgan and first released in 1995. A link to Hillsong performing the song is at the bottom of the Blog

I Give You My Heart

This is my desire
To honor You
Lord, with all my heart
I worship You
All I have within me
I give You praise
All that I adore
Is in You

Lord, I give You my heart
I give You my soul
I live for you alone
And every breath that I take
Every moment I’m awake
Lord, have Your ways in me

This is my desire
To honor You
Lord, with all my heart
I worship You
All I have within me
I give You praise
All that I adore
Is in You

Lord, I give You my heart
I give You my soul
I live for you alone
Every breath that I take
Every moment I’m awake
Lord, have Your ways in me

And I will live
And I will live for You
And I will live
And I will live for You
Oh and I will live
And I will live
And I will live for You

Lord, I give You my heart
I give You my soul, I live for You alone
Every breath that I take, every moment I’m awake
Lord, have Your way in me

Have Your way
Have Your way, have Your way

Have you ever taken time to sort of stop your world and think about what you desire most in life? Probably most of our desires center around friends, relationships, families, jobs, and our future; which are all things that are always on our minds. Where does God fall into this list of desires? I don’t believe any of the above desires are wrong, but without the right relationship with God, I do not believe any of our desires will be fulfilled to the level they can be. Notice in the lyrics, the writer says this is my desire, to honor you Lord. To me this line states that honoring the Lord should be our greatest desire. This is confirmed in Matthew 6:33, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

We are to desire God above all other people and things and we should worship him with all of our heart and praise him with all of our inner being. All of us have probably heard this before, but how many of us have ever done it? I do desire that right relationship with God, I do worship him, and I do praise him; but I am not sure that I have ever done this with all of me. I believe we all struggle with this as well, but I think the primary issue with us not giving our all, is that we are not willing to sacrifice parts of our lives and give them to God. The song points out that we must adore everything about God. For us to adore God, we must treasure who he is and what he wants for us as well as all he has to offer. In order for us to give him our all, we must first assess what is more important to us than the relationship with God that he desires. This requires a lot of soul searching and being completely honest with ourselves to fully understand what is truly keeping us from dedicating our lives fully to God. I realize this is a seemingly impossible task since there are so many things that we cling to and are unwilling to give them up to God so we can give ourselves fully to him.

As you do this soul searching, think about what it would mean to fully give your heart, your soul, and your life to the father of creation. Consider asking God what he wants you to do each and every day and following his direction. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up on your family, quit your job, or become a missionary in another country; it just means that you are trusting in God to lead you down the right path. It will help you to be a better spouse, a better parent, maybe a better employee, and will likely set your heart on fire in regards to telling others about the eternal life that Christ made available to each of us. It would take away a lot of the worry and angst that each of us faces every day. Trust in God and believe that he will be there for every breath your take and then will take you to your eternal home once you have taken your last breath. By putting ourselves completely in the hands of God, he can lead and guide us down the paths where he wanted us to be. Maybe we can’t find the right path on our own, but God can put us on that path and make sure we stay on it as much as possible; all we have to do is live for him as he lives through us. All of our earthly desires, plans, and wishes will fade away, but the promise of God will never fail. 1 John 2:17 tells us, “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” Since the things of earth fade away, what are you waiting on to focus on God and his eternal blessing? What is more important to you than following the path that God has prepared for you?

Click to Hear Hillsong Sing I Give You My Heart

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

I Love You Lord

The next entry for my Blog is I Love You Lord, which was written by Laurie Klein and released in 1976. A link to The Maranatha Singers performing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

I Love You Lord

I love you, Lord
And I lift my voice
To worship You
Oh, my soul, rejoice!

Take joy my King
In what You hear
Let it be a sweet, sweet sound
In Your ear

This is a song that gets into my head and into my heart and fills my heart with joy and brings me comfort. It is just a simple chorus with a powerful meaning. It is a good song to use when starting a bible study, small group, etc.; anywhere people are gathered in his name. Try to take the time to listen to the song and open your heart to its message.

I love you Lord. How many times have you said this with your lips, but it didn’t come from your heart? There are a large number of definitions for love and I looked at a few of them. As I pondered my question about love, I came to the opinion that each of us has our own definition of love. As you think of your own personal meaning, let it come from your heart and not from books, movies, social media, TV, etc. It doesn’t really matter how the word is defined elsewhere, how does your heart define love when it comes to your relationship with Christ? The bible tells us in Mark 14:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” This clearly tell us that love is giving our all to God and that our love should come from our deepest being, and not be just spoken words. Note that Jesus commands us to love and that there is no greater commandment. In John 14:15, Jesus tells Peter, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” If we love the Lord in the way he has commanded us to do, we will put him first in all facets of our life. Notice that we are told to love the Lord, we are given an absolute directive.

As we praise God and thank him for all he has done, is doing, and will do in our lives; we should unashamedly raise our voices. It doesn’t mean just singing loudly in church or raising our hands in praise, it means we should not be ashamed of the gospel and God’s promises and all people should know that we love our Lord from the depths of our soul and praise him for everything. In addition to praising God and giving him thanks, we should also worship him. To worship is to honor God for who he is and submit ourselves humbly to him; it is to acknowledge that he is the almighty God who made us and has prepared a heavenly home for us. There is no person or being other than God who is worthy of our worship. Music and praise are a part of what God expects us to do, and it is something we probably do when we go to church or pray; but worshipping him with a humble heart is what he deserves the most from each of us. As we fully open our hearts and worship him, we feel a greater joy and peace that only he can provide. This makes us want to rejoice and sing his praises from the mountain tops.

God loves us, sent his son to die for us, and I am of the opinion he wants to hear from us all the time. I believe our prayers, praises, and worship bring joy to his heart. It shows that although we are not perfect, we love him and realize that there would be no us, there would be no hope, and there would be promise of tomorrow without him. In 1st Thessalonians 5:17, we are told to “Pray without ceasing”; this means that God wants to commune with us and hear our praises as well as hear our needs at any time day or night. We want him to know that we are glad we are his children and that there is no better life than a life with him. I am sure he looks forward to hearing the melodious sound of the voices of his children. If you have children, you know they have good days and bad days, but we still want to hear their voices and know that they are ok; because we love them. Think about the times when you go long periods of time when you don’t hear from a child or loved one, how does it make you feel? At least God always knows what is happening in our lives, but he also wants to feel our love and hear our voices.

Have you reached out to God today?

Click to Hear the Maranatha Singers sing I Love You Lord