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Identity Crisis: Who God Says You Are

When I was born into this world, I was taken into the care of two parents who were unable to have children of their own.  So they adopted me 25 years ago. My birth mother was about to have an abortion and it was by intervention of a pastor friend of my adopted parents that it was stopped. I remember being told over and over by my parents of this story and the little details that really stuck by me. They loved me. I was one of them now. But as I grew older, something still was always shifting inside of me. A longing. A need. A void that was always attempting to get filled and for some reason it just couldn’t.

 I discovered music around age 7 and when I was fifteen years old, I started touring regionally with my first band in high school. Oh, those days of playing coffee shops and small churches with bad sound systems that for whatever reason translated so well to the rebel teenagers of the early 2000’s.  They liked the music, therefore they liked me. Especially the girls.  Holding an electric guitar gave me importance, and speaking into a microphone gave me authority. All of the sudden, I had filled that void with satisfaction that someone was satisfied with me. So the more compliments I received, the more I was achieving my goal of filling the void. Hearing me say this now sounds like a corporate target goal for the week. 

This is when my identity issues started happening. 

I’m not exactly sure when I discovered that I was operating on this dysfunctional system,but I remember understanding the gateway was in compliments. The one compliment that triggered something inside of me that longed for more could only be fully fulfilled in one person.

"If your identity is in anything other than a son or daughter of God, it’s a lesser identity…”

- Leeland Mooring

Sonship/Daughter-ship is a place of understanding. What I mean by that is, for me,  when I came to an understanding that I’m already loved and approved by God, I was fulfilled immediately. That void never has to be attempted to get fulfilled again.

But, I would be lying if I said that this doesn’t happen anymore.  In fact, that void may never go away.

Sometimes, I find myself trying to fulfill what the leadership in my church wants more than what God is originally calling forth in me. The difference is that I’m much quicker to notice it now, and therefore I can operate out of a place of sonship and not approval. Operating out of approval leads to many more decisions that take you further away as a son/daughter and therefore your decisions are made upon life and not upon God. Operating from that place of sonship/daughter-ship gives you direct connection with your father in the midst of life’s burdens.

2 Corinthians 6:18 |

“I’ll be a Father to you; you’ll be sons and daughters to me.”  

I once had a friend that was engaged to a girl, but I could sense his hesitancy to marry her. I asked him a simple question, "Do you love her?" His answer was honest and it gave me perspective on how I had been looking at God's love since I was a child. He said, "Yes I love her...but I also love tacos." His love for a girl was on the same level as a taco!! Crazy (and hilarious) as that is, that question and answer in itself gave clarity on the love of God. 

God’s love fulfills our every void. It surpasses our every question and provides every answer. Grace and truth far outweigh our sins, doubts, wrongs, and identity issues. The love that God is presenting to us is like a Father simply giving a gift to their kids every single day and sometimes we forget that love because it is used so freely in our world today.  

The Love of God | Frederick M. Lehman

The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell; It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell; The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win; His erring child He reconciled, And pardoned from his sin.

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forevermore endure— The saints’ and angels’ song.

When hoary time shall pass away, And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall, When men who here refuse to pray, On rocks and hills and mountains call, God’s love so sure, shall still endure, All measureless and strong; Redeeming grace to Adam’s race— The saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade; To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry; Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.

  So remember that YOU are loved by the God of the most high and NOTHING can separate that. For in the love of God, you will live, and live more abundantly.

Romans 8: 35-38 says this: 

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;     we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j]

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

TOP 3 THINGS TO REMEMBER

God calls you a son/daughter. 

He loves you where you are regardless of what decisions have been made.

Nothing will change God's love. So let us love and be loved by Him. 

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5 Great Ways to Get Ahead of Schedule

Hello and welcome again to another blog from Songregate.

We are going to be getting down to the nitty gritty of what it looks like to get ahead and stay productive. This will be an exploration of exercises and possibilities of ways to stay ahead of the game.

THIS WEEK: Why you should desire to get ahead of schedule and 5 ways you can begin that this week.

Be honest with yourselves and write down your first gut reaction when I mention the word…work. 

Is it…Tony Robbins is gonna hate me? Maybe.

Is it…I’m tired already? 

Is it…I hope this isn’t another one of the motivational blogs because if so I am “X’ing” you buddy.

 NO. This isn’t a motivational speech to get you fired up. This is pure truth being written down today. Above all else, I want you to remember that the power of Gods’ work empowers us to work differently. How you approach your everyday life weather you are a worship leader by vocation or not should impact you directly based on what God has done for you.  

 Collossians 3:24-25 in The Message says,

"Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. The sullen servant who does shoddy work will be held responsible. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t cover up bad work."

I love this verse because it is incredibly challenging and provoking. Being a follower of Jesus does not gives us an excuse to execute poorly, but rather it should impact us that much more to drive ourselves further. We should long to work hard because it is engrained in our DNA. In the beginning, God created. He labored and worked and from that He saw fruit come about.

One of the things I have realized about my life is I am a terrible finisher of things that I start. I have hundreds of songs that I’ve left incomplete, workouts that I could’ve gone further with but didn’t, wedding thank you’s I still haven’t done (one year later…too late?), and no graduation other than community college. I wanted to adopt a characteristic of God (as He is the author and finished of our faith) and that’s being a finisher. Seeing things through to the end, no matter how hard the struggle. 

This is how I got ahead...

Began each day having personal time with God.

This is HUGE for anyone looking to further their days. Spending time alone with God will give you focus, peace, and drive. A scripture that comes to mind is "Seek first the Kingdom of God..." and what better way to seek than to do it FIRST THING in the morning. 

  2. Looked at my Calendar Before My Week Began.

Anyone who understands procrastination knows that it can make your life hell. The night before your week begins, take 5 minutes to look at what events are coming up. Filing your family life, church life, and extra curricular activities will make your days much easier because then you can prioritize around them.

3. Formed a Task List for the Week

On the subject of prioritizing, it is essential that if you want to get ahead, you have got to task things out. Each week may be different, but that’s when my #2 came into play. I’d check out my week and then prioritize from there. 

4. Embraced Technology and Writing Stuff Down

I don’t know about you, but for me I have a want and need for things to be done as best as they can. I want whatever I do to be excellent because I long to please God and there are so many apps and tools that can help you become efficient at what you do. A few that I use are Evernote, Wunderlist, and the Day One Journal. Each I use for different things, but are essential to getting things done. Check them out. 

5. I Learned the Power of saying, “No"

This is one of the most responsible and critical points of your life. For the longest time, especially being involved in church, I always felt this unwanted pressure of saying “yes” to everything. I’m here to tell you that YOU DON’T have to do that. When you learn to say “No”, you are able to stay focused on your original tasks and you give yourself to time to execute those well. On the other side of things,  you might be getting burnt out at work. Say “No” because you need rest. All in all, do what you believe is best in that moment.

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Thanks again for tuning into the Songregate blog! If you wouldn’t mind, drop a comment in our Contact section and tell us what you’d like to see more of. 

Have a good week!

Blessings,

Austin Livingood

Founder of Songregate

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:: Selfishness vs Selflessness ::

Welcome to Week 3 of the Songregate Blog!

Today we are picking up where we left off on last week's post called "The 3 Isnt's of Worship" and I basically outlined a few things.

I don't know everything about worship and it's always a learning process.

I do know what worship is not.

Worship is not selfish

Worship is not perfection

Worship is not "have to"

Today, we're going to address the first of the three and try to grasp/understand selfish worship vs. selfless worship.

Are you ready?

Lets go.

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What is selfishness at its core? How can we define exactly what it is? Well, one would say, it is simply caring for yourself instead of someone else. I would tend to agree. But I think it's more than just a general response. Specifically, what is selfishness at its core from a biblical standpoint?

     We get a pretty direct response in 2 Timothy 3:2-4 from Paul. The epitome of selfishness rests in this verse,

"For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."

Last week, we touched a little bit on the Hebraic roots of the word, "Worship" translating to "Shehhah" meaning to prostrate oneself before another in respect. Moses did this to his own father in law in Exodus 18:7. There are two things I picked up from this scripture.

Moses laid down himself.

Then they met each other.

How does David demonstrate worship in Psalm 95:6?

If you read one verse over, Psalm 95:7 says, "for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care."

God meets us where we are at on a consistent basis, but I must ask, do we do the same? These biblical examples show that the posture wasn't directed to what they could receive out of their worship but rather what could be given. God responds to sacrifice and living a life of selflessness. A word that best describes this would be submission, which is defined as "the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person”…

...Without a question, God knew that this definition would be a part of this word. He knew it in the garden of eden when Adam was the world’s first worship leader and when the opportunity came to submit to God, Adam (and Eve, can’t forget her) chose the sin that entered the world. Afterwards, they hid in fear. In context of the worship leader, I think the “authority of another person” lies under a person named “Fear”.

 Fear has two definitions as well.

Got Questions Ministries put it like this, 

"The Bible mentions two specific types of fear. The first type is beneficial and is to be encouraged. The second type is a detriment and is to be overcome. The first type of fear is fear of the Lord. This type of fear does not necessarily mean to be afraid of something. Rather, it is a reverential awe of God; a reverence for His power and glory. However, it is also a proper respect for His wrath and anger. In other words, the fear of the Lord is a total acknowledgement of all that God is, which comes through knowing Him and His attributes.” 

Sometimes (dare I say, a lot of the time), it seems that worship is being performed. It can be easy to get caught up in the wrong mindset of sacrificing that it turns into a game trying to earn the approval of others. This comes from fear, but not in fear of the Lord. Questions like, “They’re not singing with me so am I doing something wrong?”

Fear of rejection and not belonging beg the questions of how we can be found closer with God so we can pursuit avoiding this road block.

How do we worship with a life of selflessness?

Understand That You Are Loved

In case you didn't know or need a reminder, God loves you.  He knew you before you were born, every step you would take, and where' you'll be at the end of your life on earth.  He sent His only son, Jesus, to die for you.

" There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18). 

When you grasp this concept of love, it surpasses all understanding and puts your trust in who He is. No earning of God’s approval because you are cared for more than you could ever know. Believe that and live it. 

     2. Practice Personal Time with God

 "Come near to God and he will come near to you...” (James 4:8)

One of things I always do is spend a few minutes in the morning with God. I thank Him for who He is, what He’s done, and what He is going to do in the future. Though I don’t understand everything, giving Him the time to acknowledge who He is takes the pressure and fear away from thinking that I have to measure up to some standard. He is God and is always in control of situations. I love the song Brave from Bethel Music. In the Bridge it says, “No fear can hinder now the promises You made.” 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.”(Jeremiah 29:11) 

     3. Do Something for Someone Else

Want to really put this into practice? What better way to practice selflessness than to give?

I’m going ask that you do this sometime during your week. Buy someone a cup of coffee, do something without being asked to do it, whatever it is, just do something for someone else.

Document how you feel and take notice of what that feeling brought you. When you document that feeling, bring that same approach to your next worship experience weather on stage or off of it. 

Worship with a life of selflessness.

Have a good week! We'll see you next Monday!

 ____

Austin Livingood 

Founder of Songregate 

[songregate]

:: The 3 "Isnt's" of Worship ::

Welcome to week two of the Songregate Blog!  

Man, how incredible and refreshing it is to be heading in a direction starting right now.  This week we're officially diving into some content and I felt like with this being a new venture, why not start from the bottom and work our way up? Today and for the next few weeks, we're going to talk about worship as a lifestyle. I'll be the first to say it, I am not in any way an intellectual kingpin about what worship is, however,  I can base my knowledge on what I know worship is not. 

Worship isn't selfish,  but rather selfless. 

According to the Ancient Hebrew Research Center, "the Hebraic term for Worship is "Shehhah" meaning to prostrate oneself before another in respect.  We see Moses doing this to his father in law in Exodus 18:7"

Check out this scripture too, Psalm 95:6

These examples show that the posture wasn't directed to what they could receive out of their worship but rather what could be given. 

 2. Worship isn't perfectionism, but a posture of excellence.

I love these words from Mike Cosper's, "Rhythms of Grace" where he talks about Adam being a worship leader. “Adam was, in a sense, the priest over all of creation, appointed by God to oversee it, steward it, and represent it before him. But Adam wasn’t leading worship services or doing ritualistic things to earn God’s approval. There was no need; each moment of his life was a pleasing offering to God.”

These words exemplify  exactly what our hearts should. We don't need to earn God's approval, so chasing perfection is an endless cycle that will wear us down. When we are secure in the identity as a loved child of God, we understand excellence over perfectionism and the honor it is to be one with the king of the universe. Where steadfast honor and humility collide is how beautiful excellence is born. We freely give our best so our Father's kingdom can prosper.

 3.  Worship isn't "I have to" but rather "I want to"

When we are truly in a posture of worship ("Shehhah") weather in physical form or in heart, our willingness is unwavering. What I mean is that if in fact we are walking out worship, we are walking out sacrificially. 

C.S. Lewis once said, "Fully to enjoy is to glorify." It is a posture of the heart, for you value what you sacrifice for. Worship isn't a "have to” because honestly, you don't. However, if you worship because you feel like you have to, I think God is gracious enough to understand that. I've definitely been there. When you're a child growing up,it's hard to learn what God is really all about. When I was 7-8 years old the last thing I wanted to do was head to a building full of people and sit in silence for an hour (I was all about the orange tic-tacs and chewing gum I'd get from the senior ladies. #ladiesman). But when that relationship becomes real, an eagerness for more of that relationship comes to life. It’s when we “want to” that we thrive in the enjoyment of who God is. 

For the next few weeks, we'll continue to explore these points individually and address the ways that we can make better efforts to increase our longing for more of who God is and a better understanding of worship.

Thanks for taking the time to read this weeks blog. If you have a comment, question, or would like to add more to this, please engage in conversation below. 

Let's Songregate! 

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