tuesday tunes

We're now two weeks into 2013!  If you're doing the 30 day challenge with me, how are you doing?  Have you still been consistently listening to Christian music?  With the exception of the 90's Pandora station we listened to at my Bachelorette party, I've only listen to Christian music since January 1st!  Tyler jumped into the challenge with me and we've bought several new CD's the past couple of weeks. You can thank Passion 2013 for our new music obsession because we got our Chris Tomlin and Charlie Hall CDs in the mail the weekend after Passion.  That next week we bought a Phil Wickham CD because we've both really become fond of him after picking one of his songs for me to walk down the isle to.  All that to say... if you need music suggestions, I'm your girl.  ;)

One of my favorite songs off of the new Chris Tomlin CD, Burning Lights, is "Awake My Soul".  

Songs that jump right out of scripture really fire me up and this song comes from an AMAZING story in Ezekiel 37.  Ezekiel was a prophet living the time that Daniel did when Jerusalem was captured and the Israelites were deported to live in Babylonia.  The night before the people got word that Jerusalem was destroyed, Ezekiel has this vision from God.  Ezekiel was in "a valley of dry bones" and the Lord tells him to prophesy over the bones and tell him that the Lord will breathe life into them and they will be covered in tendons and flesh.  Ezekiel prohesied as he was told and the bones began to shake and form skeletons.  Muscles were placed onto the bones.  Skin covered those muscles which covered the bones. Then the spirit breathed life onto those bones.  The bones, now covered in muscles and in flesh, stood and came to life.  

Chills?  Yeah, I know.  That vision of Ezekiel's was to show the people of God, Israel, that the Lord would bring the nation back to life physically and spiritually.  You see, the Israelites had become completely disobedient to God.  They had abandoned Him in many way and had begun to live like the pagans.  They were spiritually dead.

One of my favorite things that I've ever heard Louie Giglio say is "Sin didn't make us 'bad' it made us dead."  Wow.  Really take a minute to soak that in.  Sin didn't make you a bad person, or someone who makes bad decisions, or a girl who just can't do anything right.  Sin made you DEAD.  Like, no breath, no life, in the grave, DEAD.  Dead people don't live.  Dead people don't breathe.  Just like the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision we were dead, dry, and lifeless before Christ.  We weren't bad, we were just dead.  Our bad habits didn't keep us from Christ, death kept us from Christ.

The good news?

Jesus breathes life.  Just like the spirit breathed life into the dry bones, we can feel that same breath in our lives, too.  Our souls can be awaked by Christ.  We can come ALIVE when we allow Jesus to breathe life into our dry bones.  

The Lord can breath life into you.  Don't settle with death.  You can be AWAKENED.  You can learn what it means to really live.  You can understand what it means to have breath.  

Lord, breathe on these dry bones.

What to know more about life with Jesus?  Want to know how you can go from death to life?  Email me.  I'd love to talk to you about it!  knicolevinson@yahoo.com