Bleeding love

Bleeding love. Not the song by Leona Lewis. This is our Jesus. He bled for us because He loved us. 

As you will soon come to realize through reading my blogs, I am very much a music loving person. While I am not musically inclined myself, I love to empty out my heart through songs to the Lord. Music is such an incredible gift from God. It is soothing, convicting, humbling, joyful, and many other emotions. I believe it is one of the many ways our God speaks to us. 

Several months ago, during a Sunday evening service at church, our worship leader introduced a new song. It is a rendition of John Newton's hymn, Approach My Soul, The Mercy Seat. I immediately fell in love with this song. Now, it has been a while since I have heard this song but while watching the sweet two year old I get to keep, I found myself humming the tune. I couldn't remember the words, so I of course googled them. Reading the lyrics, I was reminded of why I fell in love with this song in the first place. And since the words are so awesome, I am going to post them for you to read yourself. 

Approach my soul, the mercy seat

Where Holy One and helpless meet

There fall before my Judges' feet

Thy promise is my only plea, O God.

Send wings to lift the clutch of sin

You who dwell between the cherubim

From war without and fear within

Relieve the grief from the shoulders of crumbling men.

O God- Pour out Your mercy to me

My God, Oh what striking love to bleed.

Fashion my heart in your alchemy

With the brass to front the devil's perjury

And surefire grace my Jesus speaks

I must. I will. I do believe. O God.

O God- Pour out Your mercy to me

My God, Oh what striking love to bleed. 

I love this song for many reasons, but for three in particular. 

(1) God's promise is our only plea (line 4). Apart from His saving grace, we have no hope. We will stand before His feet one day and give an account for the lives we chose to live and whether or not they were all about us, or all about Him. I am reminded of this promise, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them of the Father's hand." John 10:28-29

(2) Oh what striking love to bleed (line 10). What greater love do we have than this? That God in the flesh came and dwelt among men, lived a sinless life, then died a sinner's death! Why? So that we could be called the children of God! While the language is a little young, I love the way the Jesus Storybook Bible explains to kids the crucifixion. "If you were really the Son of God, you could just climb down off that cross!" they said. And of course they were right. Jesus could have just climbed down. Actually, he could have just said a word and made it all stop. Like when he healed that little girl. And stilled the storm. And fed 5,000 people. But Jesus stayed. You see, they didn't understand. It wasn't the nails that kept Jesus there. It was love. 

(3) The whole last verse before the chorus repeats (lines 11-14). Fashion my heart in your alchemy; With the brass to front the devil's perjury. And surefire grace my Jesus speaks. I must. I will. I do believe. O God. It should be our daily prayer that God would continue to fashion our hearts for Him. I love that this verse is in the song. Alchemy is a term used to define a method of transmuting something of little value into something of much value. (i.e. base metals turned into gold or silver) I want my mouth to speak, my mind to think, and my actions to proclaim, I must. I will. I do believe. My life should not be a reflection of me. When people look at me, they should see Jesus. And when Jesus takes a back seat to my "spotlight", I need to be reminded that it is He who first loved me. And He does not need me, but He chose me to be set apart so that the world could see His love for us and be saved. Fashion my heart in Your alchemy, God. I am Yours. 

Lord, let us never forget that it is You who bled for us. We never would of done the same for You. Thanks be to God for His unfailing love, His constant mercy, and His awesome metal shop skills. ;)

Here is the link to the song Approach My Soul, The Mercy Seat. You are definitely going to want to listen to it. 

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/files/2011/02/01-Approach-My-Soul-The-Mercy-Seat.mp3

More than eggs

"I recall being lost and empty;
Wishin' for another life to come and get me.
Dark days waitin' for the sun to hit me;
They tell me quit hopin' and I say don't tempt me. 
Lookin' for a hope in a pretty face, any day, any place gotta be better than what I'm livin' in.
What a cruel joke that this world plays,
Never said there's another ocean
That I could be swimmin' in.
So I'm done bein' trapped and lonely;
Found a new life and I scrapped the old me.
Made a scrapbook called a testimony;
If you knew me, the new me is how you know me.
Tell them false hopes don't call or phone me.
Tell hollywood that I know she's phony.
I was once lost, now I'm found.
I couldn't look up, but God looked down. "


This is the summation of my Easter. A reminder that I was once lost, but now I'm found. Jesus lived the life I am called to live, and died the death that I should of died. If Christ were never born, if He had not lived a sinless life, if He had not died, if His body did not take in the sins of the world and transfer His righteousness to us, if He had not conquered death and resurrected Himself, if He had not called His sheep by name, if He had not seated Himself in the heavenly places by God the Father and made forgiveness for our sins, we would be without hope. But thanks be to God, that we have an Easter. We have a day to remind us that Christ was born in the form of baby. He did live a sinless life. He did die on a cross. His body did take in all of our sins and the wrath of God while His righteousness covered us. He did conquer death. He did resurrect Himself from the grave. He does call His sheep by name and we hear His voice. He is seated in the heavenly places by God. And He has made us clean. We are forgiven and loved. This is Easter. Don't forget that Easter is more than eggs and a hyped sugar rush. It is about the risen Christ. It is about Him looking down since we are too blind to look up. Our Jesus is a great Savior. 






Quote from Jimmy Needham song, "I Will Find You". 

Being small

"He must increase, but I must decrease". John 3:30

One of the great things about being married is having a godly husband who is not afraid to let you know when you are making much of yourself, and making less of Christ. Thanks be to God for my beloved husband, Daniel Cook. It has been almost 6 months since the day the two of us became one flesh and became partakers of this wonderful journey called marriage. Every day presents challenges, but every day also yields fruit. I grew up in a divorced home and so did Daniel, so the picture of marriage has always been distorted. I was told by family and friends, fellow believers and non-believers, newlyweds and many years wedded,  that marriage would be work. Well, being as though I haven't even been married a year, I can already agree with that statement. My marriage is work, but it is my joy. One thing we learned in our counseling that I thought was incredible insight was this: Marriage is kind of like a competition between spouses. We should always be trying to think better of our spouse and think less of ourselves. Not saying that you should go out and try to win the best husband or wife award of America by becoming a door mat, but make everyday more about the other person. Think less of yourself. Think more about them and what would bless them most in the moment. I talk of marriage because this is my life now.. and I love it. Now, before you ask the question where is this leading to, let me remind you of the quote at the top. "He must increase, but I must decrease". John 3:30 This verse is not about a husband and wife. It is about our relationship with God. I mention marriage because this verse is still extremely applicable to married life. Our spouse must become more important to us than ourselves. This is something that I have had to learn not only in my relationship with my dearest Daniel, but also in my daily walk with Christ. It is very easy to be all about ourselves and forget that our life is not ours to live. While we are no longer slaves to sin, we still have a Master and His name is God. Our lives are one of God's many tools that He uses to bring the lost to Himself, to bring all glory and honor to Himself, and to bring light to the dark. But how can God be glorified in us when we are thinking more of ourselves and less of Him? The past month has been a hard self-examination for me. Not pleasant one bit. I have turned life into a parade that has me as the queen and Jesus as merely the decoration on my crown. I realize that you're probably thinking, "Whoa Brentany, did you really just say that?!" My response, "yes". My intention on writing this first blog was to let you all know where my heart is and also hopefully shed some encouragement. Daily I have lived in a manner that sacrificed nothing for Christ. We are commanded to die to ourselves and pick up our cross and follow Christ DAILY, not just when we feel like it. Well for me, it has been on a my terms basis. Fortunately, God has a different way of handling stubborn, selfish children like me. He has brought me low. I have shaken my fists at Him, yelled at Him, cried out wanting Him to just show a sign that He really is there, and just plain ignored Him. My prayers became few, my reading of the Word stopped, and my hunger for wanting to know Him more turned into a skipped meal. In one of John Piper's books, A Hunger For God, there is this quote: 

       The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ . . . the more homesick you get for heaven . . . the more you want “all the fullness of God” . . . the more you want to be done with sin . . . the more you want the Bridegroom to come again . . . the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus . . . the more you want a great awakening to God’s reality in the cities . . . the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world . . . the more you want to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth . . . the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed . . . the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.

If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. God did not create you for this. There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. I invite you to turn from the dulling effects of food and the dangers of idolatry, and to say with some simple fast: “This much, O God, I want you.” 


The part that hit me most was when he said, "If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world". One word, OUCH! I have read this book once before but flew through it faster a speeding bullet. So this time reading it, I took my time and here was God's loving, yet rebuking slap in the face. My appetite for God decreased because I thought I had everything figured out about Him and so in return I began to live selfishly. I woke up thinking what can I do that would please me most, that would make me the happiest, that would cause me the least amount of stress, and so on. My nights ended with me shaking my fists at God and being angry with Him because His plans were not matching mine. Apparently I didn't know everything about God that I thought. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart". Well friends, this doesn't mean that just because you know God and are "good" person, you can have that lifetime supply of chocolate like Willy Wonka offers. Instead, it actually means that when we truly delight ourselves in God, our desires look more like His, and the things we want most are what bring Him the most glory. So, I knew this had to stop. Now. And thankfully we have a God that is a loving, compassionate, faithful, gracious, merciful, and disciplining God. He promises to NEVER leave us or forsake us even though we spit in His face and try to take His place on the throne. I tried this for a while, and as a warning to all reading this who are in the same position I was in, God always wins. He is the champion. He is the winner. HE IS THE KING. Count it as a blessing my soul that God made you low, so that He could make you shine once again as a nightlight compared to His bright light. We should remember that we are small next to God, and that it is about making Him more, and us less. So I say it again, "He must increase, but I must decrease". 


Isn't being small great? :)