Children Drop Your Chains and Sing

Last night Tenth Avenue North came to town, and although they have great music, they have even better teaching! Mike Donehey, the lead singer is basically a traveling preacher, with all his concert-goers being his church. This man speaks truth with such passion, you can't help but let it change you. He even got down into the crowd and stood on the chairs at one point [as shown below]. So naturally, at a concert, I took notes! :)

Mike challenged us to have at least one relationship in which we are getting nothing back- one relationship where we are doing all the pouring out, and there's no way the person can or will repay us. He argued that this is how others will know we are followers of Jesus... by loving with no return on our love. People will see our love and it will point them to Jesus, who first loved us. They will say 'You're not getting anything out of this exchange' and then we can say 'Yeah, I know. It's what Jesus did for me and I can't help myself.'

100% of Christian action is simply reaction.

Mike also talked a lot about the gospel- how it allows neither sniveling or swagger- "When you really believe the gospel, it robs you of your right to be miserable and it robs you of your right to think more highly of yourself than other. When we really believe God's love for us, we can't think highly of ourselves or low of ourselves... we just think of ourselves less."

Mike ended with talking about his story- how he broke his back in high school in a car accident and that's when he started to learn how to play guitar- when he was on his back for 2 months. It was so cool to hear him talk about pain and struggle and our circumstances. One line that really caught my ear was this- "the pain between the pictures." He was talking about how although he could have albums filled with hundreds of pictures of happy smiling memories, it was the events that happened between all those photographical moments that really shaped him and that he is really grateful for today- the pain between the pictures. He talked about how often we pray for the hard times to go away, for everything to be easy. But God responds- "It's not your circumstances that need to change, it's you."

I'd like to end with a few lines from their song, The Struggle:

Hallelujah
We are free to struggle
We're not struggling to be free
Your blood bought and makes us children

So children drop your chains and sing

P.S. If you haven't read yet about how Tenth Avenue North inspired the "live loved" sign-off, you can check it out here. 

New Neighbor Series: Why we sign off with "live loved." [Part 4]

I have never been a big fan of [Good-byes] 

Reason # one: They seem to leave this air of permanent absence.

Reason # two: I have always loved the quote…

                      

“Do not cry because it is over.  Smile because it happened”

Reason # three: Saying “see you later gator” never ceases to make me laugh

This leads me to explain the choice of our sign-off….

Why { LIVE LOVED }?

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a video by Mike Donehey from Tenth Avenue North.  It hit me hard as I realized I how much I didn’t believe or understand that [He] loved me.  I started looking back at my reactions to situations, people and events that proved my disbelief true.  Talk about eye opening. 

There is truth in the fact that knowing that Jesus loves me changes everything.

When we live as if we truly believed that we are deeply loved by the Creator of all things created, by the Savior of the world, by the Lord of all, we are free. Free to be who we were created to be, free to live without regret or plagued by guilt, without care of what others think of us, free to just be. We are no longer pulled down by our insecurities or the lies of the enemy. We are free to relate to others out of the depths of our heart, rather than the surface of what we allow them to see. We are free to think good thoughts [about ourselves, others, and God] because we know that God is a loving God and that He loves me and the people I interact with. Living in the knowledge that we are loved by the Father brings freedom to every area of our lives…

so how will it change your life if you LIVE LOVED ?