Bringing To You A Sunday Sound

So as most of you know, I lead worship in Spanish at my church on Sunday afternoons. It was a total surprise to me when I got home after the service, half way into my mango, that my Dad said that he had recorded me singing so that I could hear. He hadn't thought about it, but once he was sitting down he just left his phone recording to later show me. I was really curious so he played it for me while I had dinner. The last time I had heard myself recorded was probably a year ago and honestly God has just been molding my voice one day at a time. It's been a long, beautiful, and painful process that I am so grateful for. For the pain too? Yes. I rejoice for those heart-breaking times because with them has come anointing and passion for the things of God. I guess you could just skip all my ramblings and go straight to hearing the song down below, but I do hope that you'll stick around long enough to hear my little stories. I grew up in a small church where it seemed like if you had any God-given talent you might as well hide it under the table because one must be "humble". I lived with these lies, believed them, and saw life through this lense. Jesus has a way of setting us free from those though, doesn't He? You see I saw two complete polar opposites as I began to serve during worship: those that were reserved and sang quietly as if to stop others from judging them and those who wanted to shine and through their singing they just screamed look at me. Can you guess which one I was? For a long time my voice almost resembled a caged bird, I just wasn't free. I sang almost all the time but something blocked me. My insecurities and the scary thought that people would think that I wanted the attention were a huge part of why I felt stuck. If I got a compliment I had a horrible fear of taking the attention away from God and the first thing I would say was, "thank you, all glory to God." That is still true today but the false humility is broken. I guess I thought that if I'd say it every time, somehow it would be enough to protect me and make God happy. But what does God's Word say again? Oh yeah. 

(1 John 4:18) 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.

When God saved me He cleansed a completely prideful girl who thought all she needed was herself to be successful in life, so that girl became so grateful to her God and never wanted to go there again. She thought the best way to thank God was to be the total opposite of who she was. God's voice wasn't all too clear for her yet so she did the best she could with an honest heart knowing that her only truth was the genuine feeling of wholeness she encountered as she closed her eyes and sang. God began to work with that and now this girl knows that true humbleness isn't something one has to try hard to reflect because when your heart is placed in the right place it just flows out. The sound is different and that atmosphere of true worship is created. This is why God became frustrated with the Israelites when He told them how was it that by now they didn't understand that He did not desire sacrifices: it was their hearts He was after. If you've read a lot of my blog posts you'll read a lot about the heart and how it's the beginning of true worship because my journey has been devoted to knowing my Father's heart and that's what He's revealed to me. So I share. Through my spiritual process I've learned what true humility looks and smells like and that lesson is one of the greatest ones yet. It set me free. I say this because I have been wanting to share some of my music but the timing just hasn't been right...I love God's timing though. He loves doing things behind my back to bring about a touching surprise. We do life like that and I wouldn't have it any other way. So I share this "sound" with you as I did on my facebook page with an honestly stripped heart just hoping it makes you smile up at God. I even told my Dad Sunday night, is it weird that I'm here worshiping with myself...so weird lol. It's one thing being up there but stepping down to really hear myself I thought for the first time...I like this person. And again I'm not one to share such super intimate things but I strongly feel to. The process is worth it. Not because of the sound itself but because of the person behind the sound. We are the vessels who can either carry His anointing or just make noise. I live to worship in a way that doesn't make noise but that rather, brings my intimate worship into a public setting. I hope anyone who hears my music can hear and feel that. My life's calling in the worship area is to show people that it's more than okay to draw near, to come as we are, to flow in the Spirit...

This song is called "Te Doy Gloria" and in English it's "I Give You Glory."

Translation:

Oh, how beautiful
Are You, Lord
It's Your words
It's Your love

Oh, how glorious
Are You, Lord
It's Your power
It was Your cross

That saved me
And rescued me
Just a moment there
Set me free

//I give You glory, glory
I give You glory, glory
I give You glory, glory
Jesus//

////With a crown of thorns
You became my King forever///

The Beginning Of True Worship: A Circumsized Heart

My Bible reading time is getting so good. I'm so close to The New Testament that I can taste it but the journey has been astonishing, slow paced but full of meditation. As I read through the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel there was one similar focal point that I tuned into: God was telling these anointed men that what He most desired was the heart. The Lord went on to pour out prophecies about how He planned to recapture Israel's hearts, how He desired for His people to circumcise their hearts. God gave them so many literal examples and symbols for what true worship really was but they (with an exception of a few) never got it. The prophet Samuel understood this when he reprimanded King Saul for choosing sacrifices over obedience. David got it when he sang in one of his Psalms about how he finally realized that The Lord takes no pleasure in sacrifices and offerings, but instead, delights in a broken and contrite heart. For a while God used these literal expressions as a shadow of the true meaning of the beginnings of worship. Before anything else, God desires to have our hearts in His hand, because to give someone your heart is to give them all of you. Change came and God was behind this transformation, ready to reveal to all that what He was trying to do this whole time was win over their hearts. The few men that understood this did life with God: walked with Him daily, invited The Lord to be where they were, and followed The Lord wherever He wanted them to go. It's so easy to recognize a move of God when you spend intimate and public time with God. In your secret place as well as the grocery store, church, between classes, at work, and during lunch conversations. This is a picture of what doing life with God is and it all begins with a rendered, devoted, circumcised heart. You see, a circumcision removes the natural protective covering and what God was saying was this: for a while guys I asked you to circumcise your children because I was giving you a picture of what I really wanted and that was for that wall in your heart that you use to keep me out to be removed so that I could come in. God wants to come in to our hearts and dwell there. Worship first involves us giving our hearts over so that His Spirit may dwell there. When Jesus came He later gave the next revelation and that was this: guys, the temple was a symbol for a long time but now I've been sent by my Father to tell you that when I leave His Spirit will now not just be with you and in you...now He's gonna be upon you because your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Lord tells us in The Book of Daniel that God is the revealer of mysteries and that He is.

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(Ezekiel 11:19-20) I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

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My favorite example so far in The Old Testament of what a circumcised heart looks like would have to be in the life story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they're put on the spot and about to be thrown into a burning furnace because they refused to worship anybody/anything else but their God. I mean, I felt empowered as I was reading this.

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(Daniel 3:17-18) "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” 

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God loves and honors that heart that has let Him completely come in to the point of living a life that screams: My God is the living God and He can do anything for me but even if things don't work out the way I envision I will still love Him and keep my heart open to Him. God just can't resist this genuine heart because we were all created the same fierce and bold potential to love. This is the beginning of true worship that is born from doing life with God.

A Transformed Heart Transforms Worship

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(Deuteronomy 30:6) “The Lord your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live!

Like my grandma always says," No matter how many times other people try to make my recipes they will never taste the same because I make my food with love, special for my family." Nothing beats making something or doing anything out of love. In the same way, all that we do to bring honor and glory to God should be done out of love. Christ paid a huge dept for us that we could never repay but the only way we can say, "thank you," is by doing what we do for Him out of love. If we have to wash the car or sweep the floor, let us do it out of love; If we are given the privilege to worship God up on an altar, then let us do it out of love; If we are going to preach, then let it be out of pure gratitude and passionate love for the One who saved us and gave us the ability to do so. If we don't know how to do this then let God change our hearts and our generation's hearts so that we may learn to truly love and really live. Now that God has transformed your heart, let Him transform the way you worship Him.

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(Deuteronomy 12:8-9) “Your pattern of worship will change. Today all of you are doing as you please, because you have not yet arrived at the place of rest, the land the Lord your God is giving you as your special possession.

When we don't have direction from God, we do what we do. By this process we come to make mistakes and end up doing as we please. God doesn't want us to wander aimlessly, He wants us to hear His voice of truth so that it can be like a lamp unto our feet, showing us the path ahead. Being able to believe in what is not yet seen (faith) comes from hearing the word of God. When we read His word we learn what His voice sounds like. Then  from this comes conviction, the hunger to know more about Him who loves us so deeply, and the strength to live for Christ who chose to live for us. Like I always say, anybody can die for another person but only those who are in Christ die and like Him, choose to live. I don't want to do as i please...I want to make God smile. I want to touch His deserving heart. Something tells me that you do to. I challenge you to cling to Him and seek Him so that He can change your pattern of worship. He wants to be our rest: Not our calm before the storm, but our calm during the storm. God has something special in store for you and for me that we will receive when we arrive at His place of rest. A relationship with God will keep us near to Him so that we can hear Him and know His plans for us. In this way, He is our one and only rest.

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(Deuteronomy 12:30-31) do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example.’ You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods.

Like I had said on my past post, God wants to give us something new. We don't have to watch music videos on T.V to get ideas because our God is the creator. I mean He put "create" in creative. Nothing that this world gives for their audience could ever compare to what we can do to worship God.  We don't need their customs, traditions, or words because we are the children of the God who created the stars and calls them by name. We worship the God who designed and runs the human body: He makes a heart beat, blood flow, and formed each nerve and cell. If we were to uncover Hollywood's actors and singers what would we find? If we were to truly let the "glass masquerade" fade what would we uncover? Let us be inspired by God and live to make Him known. If my God is creative then so am I and He has given me the ability to create marvelous things. Let's get closer to Him so that He can reveal to us that which we do not know. But let us never loose focus on what truly matters. Who cares how the Beatles sing and play or how Katy Perry dresses? God wants to give us something new. Like my Mom said, "It's time to stop eating from the old bread." If you are going to do something for God then let it be Him who inspires you. Let it be the Holy Spirit who places in your heart new and fresh ideas. God has placed all the creative genius from His heart and mind into you, but all you have to do is delight yourself in Him. If we must be passionate or mesmerized, let it be by God.

The Wellspring Of Your Heart

(Proverbs 4:23) Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

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The Lord urges us to protect our hearts from what goes in or better yet, from what we allow to enter into it. We've all heard the saying that what goes in must come out. This is truer than we realize. As worshipers who are called to worship God in spirit and in truth, the one common thing that separates us from our heart's desire is in fact what we have stored in our hearts. The very feelings and thoughts that dwell within us are a product of what's inside because we have opened the door. Look at this way, If we have a well from which we constantly pull up water from and that well was tampered with then we would have polluted water. What if our whole community freely drank water from our well also? They would be poisoned by our water supply as would we. Spiritually King Solomon showed us that our hearts are the wellspring of life. A wellspring is an original and bountiful source of something; the source of a stream or spring. People tend to wonder why they cannot stop cussing, well...Tell me what kind of music your listening to, who you hang out with, and what you're watching on T.V? There lies the answer. Other people wonder why people become depressed, well...tell my what your favorite radio station is, who you go out with (if you do), and what movies or shows you watch? Again, the answer lies within the question itself. This is so important that words cannot even begin to express the crucial role of the effect of our wellspring being contaminated on our lives. When I was 16 years old the Lord spoke into my heart and revealed to me that if my desire was to follow Him and truly worship Him, the there were things that I had to turn away from and two biggies were what I watched and the music I listened to. Some might read this and thing ouch, delete my playlist? Never! But let me tell you this, with all confidence in the Lord's word I say just as He said to me, you will never worship God to your fullest potential if you do not stop settling for what this world offers you. The music, the scary music, the friends who have a more colorful vocab than the rainbow in the sky. It's time to turn away from the things that hurt God's heart and to decide to go after the things that we were called to do. (1 Corinthians 6:15) Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;  you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. I'm truly sorry if I am offending anyone but all this comes from my personal walk with the Lord, not to harm, but to edify. We cannot be so complacent in letting our hearts be filled with dirty muck water. It's just not possible to serve two masters. The word of God says: (Matthew 6:24) "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other." Who are we going to love and be devoted to? We cannot listen to Spiritual music but then also listen to pagan music, which I will later explain the difference of. We cannot be lukewarm in our lifestyle because we are called to awaken out of our daily slumber so that we may offer a pure and fragrant sacrifice to our God. He is so worthy...He's been so good. My greatest advice is to go before the Lord and ask Him for the strength to do His will, but for me all it took was meditating on His unfailing perfect love that covered my multitude of sins. There's this portion of words in Hillsong's Hosanna lyrics that I love which say, "Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen, show me how to love like you have loved me. Break my heart from what breaks yours, everything I am for your kingdoms cause..." With this said, we must all guard our hearts so that it may be said of us that our worship wellspring is of joy, peace, love, and truth. As true worshipers, may we all come to say this with all our hearts:

(Psalm 40:6-10) You take no delight in sacrifices or offerings. Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand— you don’t require burnt offerings or sin offerings. Then I said, “Look, I have come. As is written about me in the Scriptures: I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.” I have told all your people about your justice. I have not been afraid to speak out, as you, O Lord, well know. I have not kept the good news of your justice hidden in my heart; I have talked about your faithfulness and saving power. I have told everyone in the great assembly of your unfailing love and faithfulness. 

May the Lord's instructions be written 
on our heart for now and always.

The Heart Of Worship

"Keep your first love close to your heart to remind you of why it is that you worship."

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There are always reasons behind any and all actions. Motives that drive our every move.  Emotions that provoke our most inner core and being. I'm not talking about a hidden agenda, it's more like a secret letter imprinted on our hearts and souls. The wise Kari Jobe explained how we must always remember our first love. She's right. When we begin to awake in our hearts the past moments when we were saved by grace, loved when we felt unlovable, and embraced when all else rejected us, then we begin to fall in love all over again with the amazing God that offered all of this to us. As Worshipers, Psalmists, or Worship Leaders, we have to constantly remind ourselves of why we do what we do. Why do we Worship? When I ask myself this question, the words that come to mind are: "How can I not worship? Jesus reached into the deep dark pool of water where I was sinking and pulled me out. He loved me first so that's the most intimate and loving way I can express my gratitude and love. I worship because of love, true love that is like a burning flame that cannot be turned off. No wind can blow so hard as to put the fire out. The fire is within me and it burns with a passion. I passionately worship because Jesus passionately walked where I walked and felt what I felt and went through all that I have gone through. These words are too few to express why I worship, but they are raw and they are oh so real. In regards to the congregation or people, I enjoy seeing the freedom produced from bursting out into song. My mind explodes with faith when I witness the shackles being torn off of people through a worship offered to God in Spirit and in Truth. It brings literal joy to my face and makes me want to continue to sing all night if I have to." The Lord says: (Revelation 2:2-4) I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. As worshipers, we can not forget our first love. We have to hold on to those moments of redemption and keep them near to our hearts always. And that will be the pure motive that will cause us to sing or play or dance wholeheartedly to and for God. That needs to be the true heart of our worship—the moment when we first fell in love.