By your side

I've been listening to a lot of Mat Kearney and Tenth Avenue North lately. A few of the best musicians I can think of really. Mat Keaney's All I Have is one of my favorite songs. Not including Virginia is for Lovers of course. The song that I like by Tenth Avenue North is also doubling as the name of this post. By your side.

The reason I really like the song By Your Side by Tenth Avenue North is because it really stresses that no matter when or where we fall short of the Glory of God. Taking the songs words and kind of changing them a little bit, He'll be by our sides, whereever we fall in the dead of night, whenever we call. All we really need to do is go to God with our hardships and shortcomings. It doesn't matter what we've done because God is always quick to forgive us. We can't really take this too literally though, we tend to do things we know we shouldn't do just because we know that God is going to forgive us. Romans 6 says that we should not continue sinning so that the grace that God gives us will multiply or abound. Taking a little bit from a post by my friend, Kendall, God doesn't look at us by the SOL curve. There is no way to get a failing grade but still be considered "good enough" Though God does forgive, and He is quick to forgive, we think that we are untouchable because of this. We are still falling short every single day. I know that I've done it even today already. We can never really be good enough. We've failed, and it's just because God loved us so much that He sent His only Son to die for us. Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it to the full (John 3:16 and John 10:10). My question is, if we are being saved by the grace of God, why then would we want to  continue to sin? What in the world makes us want to rebel so quickly? That's a literal question. I am clueless as to what the answer is. I don't understand why but in 1 Corinthians 1:18 it says "The message of the cross is fooloishness to those who are perishing. But to those who are being saved, it is the power of God." The message of the cross is the fact that Jesus died for our sins, and that we should try and honor Him the best way we can and that definitely includes not intentionally trying to sin. I don't know about you guys, but if I were God, and I am thankful that I'm not, I would be pretty po'd if I sent my only Son to die for the shortcomings of man, and then they were still intentionally doing things against my commandments.

The reason that I like the song "All I have" is because in the song, the first verse has a part where it says,
"I'm tired of the same song, everyone's singing. I'd rather be lost with you instead" I'm not sure how he was meaning for us to take it, but I am taking as Mat would rather be lost with God instead. Think about it, God wants nothing more than to be in a full, ever-lasting, loving relationship with us. I know that at least for many of the people who I am friends with, all they realy want is a full, ever-lasting, loving relationship with God as well. It's what I want. I know that much. Another thing I like about this song that deals less with the grace of God, is the chorus where he sings "All I have, all I have, all I have well, you know it's yours." God's creation is the earth. He created everything that we have on the earth. He even created the stars that are not on the earth. All the beautiful things that are on this earth because He put them there. They are all His. The thing is, God is taking this song literally and He told us, "All I have all I have, all I have well, you know it's yours." He gave us the earth. He really gave everything He created to us. Though He made all of these beautiful things, it amazes me to know that He loves us more than He loves the planet He made for us to live on. The thoughts the God has towards the earth can not even come close to the things that He thinks of us. He loves us as His precious children, and  it amazes me that there are people who will take their lives for granted. Though that's kind of off topic right now it kind of ties into the other paragraph where we talk about intentional sinning. Anyhow, God gave us His creation, and I, for one am very thankful that we do have such a great place to live where we can worship the God that we choose.

I think a great example of a person that  God was with the entire time they were going through something is Libby Ryder. As many people now know, Libby had cancer for a good long while. but thanks to the work that God did in her life, she is now cancer free! What a great display of God's love for us. He's completely healed her, and I know that I will never want to take this life for granted ever again because I know that at any point in time that God can take the life that He gave all of us, and He can take it away from us with same swiftness that He gracefully gave it to us with. We all know that cancer is something that many, many people die from every single year, and hearing that Libby beat it with God's help is one of the most amazing things that I have heard. Glory be to God for this amazing feature of power of the things of this world.

One thing that I've learned recently is the power of prayer. One thing that is on my heart as of yesterday is one of my friends might have cacner. I am not going to even think about if it were to be one person gets rid of their cancer, so another person gets it. No, this is happening for a reason, but I know that with God's help this girl can, and will get through this. Those of you who want to know exactly who I'm talking about, just talk to me in school or something. I don't wanna say her name on here because I don't think she would want it to be really public. It's just been on my heart. Please pray for her.

That's all for today. I've got soccer tryouts in a while, and I don't really know what's going to happen. Wish me luck!

I love you guys,
TJ