A New Sound: The Lord is singing over you!

“Your strength shall be my song of joy. At each and every sunrise, my lyrics of your love will fill the air!”

Psalm 59:16

Get ready because the Lord is waking up many of His beloved sons and daughters to songs this season!

This morning I heard lyrics repeating in my dream: "Love can build a bridge between your heart and mine." I glanced at the clock and noticed it was 3:17 a.m. Something about the number stuck with me as I rolled back asleep. 

A few hours later, the Lord brought me to this verse: 

Zep. 3:17 — The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.

Isn't it beautiful to imagine the Creator of the universe singing and exulting over us? The original Hebrew word for "loud singing" in this verse describes a sound like a shout or a ringing cry in joy, wisdom and praise. God is so powerful that He doesn’t have to sing in an audible voice. You will hear the words beating through your spirit!

What a loving Father we have who individually steps into our lives and soothes our weary and tired souls with songs of love, compassion and joy!

"The Lord, your God, is in your midst" implies an inner-dwelling, where Christ lodges within our hearts. The All-Mighty One is beating in rhythm with our souls and lulling many of His children awake with songs in our spirit during the early hours. 

Make sure to write down the lyrics you hear and then research the song's backstory. God might open your eyes to a new discovery! 

Yesterday, King Jesus woke me up to "Hold My Hand" by Hootie and The Blowfish! I hadn't heard that song in many years, but I instantly knew the Lord had a beautiful message buried in the song's history and lyrics for many people!

Hold my hand
I'll take you to the promised land
Hold my hand

While researching the song's history, I learned that Hootie & The Blowfish was overlooked for nearly a decade, but they kept singing and working on their craft. Then a divine moment happened when an executive came across their work, and they later signed a record deal. They sold 16 million records in one year and quickly became one of the most successful bands in the nineties.

By the time they recorded "Hold My Hand," they'd been singing the song for so long that the vocals came naturally. They might have seemed like an overnight success, but the Lord had helped them work on their craft for many years. 

God's message is clear for some of you: keep working on the unique skill set that He's implanted inside you. Don't overthink it. Just create and put down exactly what He shows. God gave you the dream and promise, and it will come to pass. 

Today the Lord also reminds us to recognize His voice in new ways and never limit God to a box. He can speak, sing and show us His mercy and love through all sorts of creative avenues. 

Sometimes we miss God's words and moves because we associate things with the culture's perspective instead of the Lord's heart. 

A religious mindset says, "oh no, that's a secular song, it can't be the Lord." However, when we live in a Spirit-filled land, we perceive God's handprint and creativity over all things! 

We can hear Jesus even if we can't see Him.

We learn to draw our lives from a conversational friendship with Christ, who speaks to us just like He did to the Christ-followers on the way to Emmaus.

They asked, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32, NRSV). 

In the same way, anytime the Lord speaks, your heart will burn with passion and excitement! You might think: "why am I singing a song over and over that I haven't heard in years?" Then it will dawn on you — oh, it's Jesus! 

We have a Savior who desires to speak and converse with us as we develop a trusted friendship with our Father. Our hearts burn for Him, and we can't contain it, especially when God reveals His treasures and love in new exciting ways. That burning passion then goes forward to love others like Christ loves us. 

The Lord speaks primarily through His Word, but this season, I think He's awakening many of His children to the sound of music. 

When the Lord gives us a song, we must listen to the exact lyrics we hear and imagine Jesus singing the words over our hearts. 

Sometimes people say they haven't heard God speak, but if you've accepted Christ as your Savior — He's talking. We just have to understand His language.

God rarely speaks in an audible voice, but rather, a still, small voice that often repeats like a song lyric repeatedly. Other times He speaks through dreams, visions and creativity. That's why it's crucial to study the Word of God. The Bible helps us understand the Father's character and heart, so it becomes easier to discern when it's Him versus the enemy and even our own thoughts.

The Father's heart is so gentle, loving and compassionate. He doesn't condemn. Jesus walks beside us and gives us a burning heart to chase after God's will instead of our own. He's our Savior, Messiah and best friend. He teaches us the proper way to love others.

Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit is our Helper, Comforter and Defender. He's the one who says do it this way, try it this way, I know you're scared, but I am with you anyway.

God the Father is to be revered and respected in divine allegiance. We come to His throne trembling out of deep respect and awe, thankful for a Father who loves us even in our messiness and sin. We desire to follow His ways and commands because He sent His Son, who died for our sins.

A man's mind is incapable of perceiving the mysteries of Jesus Christ unless we are firmly rooted in Spirit and Truth. So the Lord urges us to love His Word in new and majestic ways! We have to live "inspired by the moving of the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21). Then we can perceive Him in all things! 

Today I feel such peace and serenity over God's sons and daughters; the Lord's heart is beating strongly for His children. You are so dearly loved and cherished by the Father! It's time to grab the Lord's hand again as He walks you into unexpected territory.

That's the phrase I just heard, "unexpected territory," so whomever this is for, get ready because you are entering something swiftly that will come as a surprise! 

God is saying: "With a little love, and some tenderness, we'll walk upon the water, we'll rise above this mess. With a little peace, and some harmony, we'll take the world together, we'll take them by the hand."

Cause I've got a hand for you
I've got a hand for you
Cause I wanna run with you

Hold my hand
I'll take you to the Promised Land
Hold my hand

PERFECT LOVE

“Love bears all things…”

There is an incredible pattern to the Bible that still causes me to pause in deep reverence when the Lord opens my eyes to something new.

This morning the Lord brought me to two verses; one in 1 Corinthians 13:7 and John 13:7…

"Love bears all things..." 

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." 

These verses point to one fact: God's love remains a covering and protection for us. His humility is one of the most extraordinary acts of love we can learn from Jesus.

"Love bears all things…."
The word "bears" in the verse comes from the Greek verb stego, which means "shelter, roof or cover." This represents the perfect love from Christ that protects and shields us, preserves us, and helps us endure.

God's decisions, choices and timing are always perfect because He is a Father who loves us and wants to protect us from things we cannot see.

He's intentional and purposeful and helps us prepare for the future. His rooftop covering helps us endure and weather the storms of life, and He cares about His children so much that He'll even wash our dirty, sinful feet. 

Peter could not begin to comprehend why the Son of Man would wash the disciples' feet, yet our loving Savior did just that in John 13. There's a greater purpose in everything the Savior does. 

John 13:7 -- Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." 

The pronouns are emphatic, like a loving parent might reply to a child who can't comprehend something at the moment. This was like when I once took my nephew to the beach and immediately felt a strong undertow current.

My nephew wanted to swim and play and have fun, but I could perceive something he could not comprehend. At the moment, it might have seemed like I was being unfair, but I was protecting my nephew from drowning. 

In the same way, the Lord's ways and decisions might not always make sense to us, but even God's timing has intention and purpose. We must trust His plans over ours.

Jesus symbolically washed Peter's feet to show a perfect kind of love that comes with a servant's heart. The Messiah died to cleanse us from our sins and give us new life. He bore the weight of all our messiness and vices simply because He loves us. 

This same kind of love is cascaded around us daily like a rooftop covering.

We are incapable of understanding the Lord's mysteries and decisions, but the Lord will illuminate our understanding in due time.

In this verse, Jesus uses a verb that means revelation will come "hereafter" through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It's a lesson of humility that is learned through experience at a later time.

The Barnes commentary explains it like this: 

Had he simply commanded them to be humble, it would have been far less forcible and impressive than when they saw him actually performing the office of a servant. And we may remark here that God often does things we do not fully understand now, but which we may hereafter. He often afflicts us; he disappoints us; he frustrates our plans. Why it is, we do not know now, but we yet shall learn that it was for our good and designed to teach us some important lessons of humility and piety.

When the Lord unveils His plans and purposes piece-by-piece, we often gain greater spiritual understanding and become more aware of the Lord's perfect timing and plans for our lives. By chasing after His treasures and partnering in the promise, we become more aware of His handprint on all things.

Experiences with the Lord are far greater than just wisdom and knowledge. It's great to have a promise regarding earthly matters, but at the end of the day, we need God's perfect love to understand spiritual realities. 

"Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten. Our present knowledge and our prophecies are but partial, but when love's perfection arrives, the partial will fade away" (1. Cor. 13:8-10). 

When the Father says, "love bears all," He's reminding us that even when we run away, He will chase us down in heavy pursuit.

He loves us way more than we can ever fathom, and this is the kind of tender-loving mercy that leaves the 99 for the one.

It's the kind of love that whispers to our hearts when we're hurting and reminds us that we're not alone. It's the loving embrace of a Father who sees and knows all and still takes us at our worst. God doesn't just take us and forgive us; he cleans and recreates us in His perfect image. 

God walks so closely that His shadow literally cascades from you as you conquer everything together.

There are seasons when we are waiting on promises for so long that we forget the most important promise: God's perfect love.

It's not for us to contain but to give away to others even when we don't always feel like it. Love is not an emotion but a commitment and expression of the love God has already given us. Love serves others without being showy and sees others from a holy viewpoint.

Love knows when to stay and when to leave. Love respects boundaries. Love covers a multitude of sins. 

Love does not find fault but celebrates the goodness of the Lord. We can only love because Christ first loved us.

1 John 4:7-8 (ESV)
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Romans 5:5 (ESV)
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.