ChristianDance

Choosing Jesus isn’t a one-time decision. Running can feel so much safer than staying, especially when the road ahead looks dark. Marisel knew that dark road ahead quite well. “I Choose You” by Marisel started as one of her earliest originals, and years later she brought it back to life with a fresh arrangement, because the message itself never got old: “trust God’s love and choose Him daily, no matter the season of life” . The lyrics open with an honest confession —  “All I knew was to run from you”  — pain had built walls that were too thick to climb. Does it sound familiar? Maybe you’ve done (or are still doing) the same thing, dodging God instead of running to Him. The chorus is a turning point. Marisel sings “Guide me to the light // I know there will be pain these nights // But I will be alright // Your joy will come with the sweet sunrise.” This isn’t a denial of pain, but a decision made in spite of the pain to trust God. We can read about similar crossroads that Joshua faced ...

Do you know you’re carrying something sacred? Moses watched a cloud lead his people through the desert. David danced through the streets, undignified, as the ark of God rolled into town. Both scenes point to the same longing: to be near the presence of God. Overland Missions Music captures that longing on their acoustic album “The Prodigal” with a groovy, joy-filled track about a truth many believers forget. In the acoustic version of their song “I’m A Temple,” they sing, “Now the Spirit lives inside of me // And you can’t get him out.” There’s no cloud needed, and there’s no ark to chase after: “The clouds no more, ’cause the Holy Ghost lives in me.” The Holy Ghost also wants to live inside of you. The apostle Paul told the Corinthian church something radical: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). Your body — not a building, not a mountain, not a sacred cloud — carries the presence of the living G...

Have you ever wondered if you’re loved unconditionally?   Every heart searches for something more. We all know that hunger, chasing answer after answer, yet never finding a worldly reply that satisfies our hunger. In “For God So Loved the World,” Gresha Schuilling sings about how she heard the voice of Jesus. Not as a set of rules or a religious formula. A Love that reaches out to us through the darkness, and calls us home. The end of that search is captured in the chorus: “For God so loved the world, He gave His only Son, that all who believe in Him shall live on.” To most of us, this scripture passage isn’t new, we’ve heard it quoted so many times. The apostle John wrote it two thousand years ago: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “Whoever…” , not the perfect. Not the “put-together”. You and me, we’re all equal… Everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life! Hold on to ...

What are you still holding on to instead of giving it to God?  Three in the morning has a way of exposing what we’ve been avoiding all day. Bonnie Jean Bailey knows that hour well. In her song “Take the Wheel,” she sings about the tossing and turning, being “sick and tired of all this worrying,” and bags so heavy they threaten to burst. Can you picture that? Most of us carry something similar. Possibly we don’t call it a levy as Bonnie does, but the burden isn’t less.  Bonnie points out a pattern that we need to be aware of… “Every time I try to hand it over, I take it back cuz I need control of everything.” Does this sound familiar? We pray about something that is worrying us, feel a moment of relief, and then quietly pick up the burden again an hour or so later.  Bonnie isn’t preaching from a distance here. She’s describing her own tug-of-war between fear and faith. And to be honest, that could also be my tug-of-war that she is describing. Is it also your tug-of-war a...

What are you still trying to add to His grace? An altered message? A stranger’s name under the seal? A little grace mixed with a little law? That’s the counterfeit gospel that Whispering HOPE calls out in their song “No Other Gospel”. It’s a trap every generation faces in some form or other. The song was born from a simple, unshakable truth: Jesus saves completely, and nothing can improve on what He accomplished at the cross. The lyrics are clear. “But Christ has done what I could not // His blood has set me free.” So dismiss any thoughts you may have that you still owe a debt that Christ has paid for. The pre-chorus asks a question worth repeating here: “If the debt is mine to finish // Why did Jesus take my place?” That question exposes a subtle attempt to earn what’s already been given, and it also shows how quickly our thoughts can lead us down the rabbit hole. The apostle Paul touches on the same in Galatians 2:21: “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were th...