Spotify | Sara Burt

Recently the soundtrack from “The Greatest Showman” has been the only music playing in my house. In fact, as soon as we left the movie theater over Christmas Break, one of my kiddos pulled up the album on Spotify and “Project Learn All the Songs” commenced.

I have a tendency to completely immerse myself in an album if I am drawn in and love the music. Sometimes my family grows weary of hearing the same songs over and over and over again, but that’s how the music seeps down into the marrow of my bones. I turn the lyrics over slowly and repetitively on my tongue like a piece of ice on a hot summer day. The music melts in and becomes a part of me.

Most of our memories are wrapped up in some kind of sensory marker. If we see a picture, smell certain food, or go to a certain place, we can uncannily retrieve a memory attached to the sense engaged.

Music is the marker of my life and my life is full of musical Ebenezers (1 Samuel 7:12).

I remember the music from times of triumph and times of defeat.

I remember the music from times of joy and times of sadness.

I remember the music from times of love and times of heartbreak.

Just hearing certain music sets off a chain reaction of emotional memory and usually awakens a beautifully satisfying spiritual pilgrimage to past experiences.

I am currently going through the study, “Uninvited” by Lysa Terkeurst, a study I highly encourage you to go through!! Why? Unpack this statement, one of many nuggets of wisdom to take hold of memorize from the book:

“The mind feasts on what it focuses on. What consumes my thinking will be the making or the breaking of my identity.”

How true is this?! I want to feast on the commands of God designed to bring me fullness of life and fullness of joy.

Knowing how I’m wired means 2018 is a year I am planning to immerse myself in songs that speak of God’s principles. And this spiritual discipline isn’t only for musicians. It’s biblical baby.

May the words of Psalm 119:54 ring true for ALL of us in 2018 as we journey on, singing songs along the way:

“Thy statutes are my songs
In the house of my pilgrimage.”

Only by songs of grace,

Sara Danielle

Pastor’s Wife & Director of Thrive Women’s Ministry

As the “Divine Makeover…It’s In the Bag” Women’s Retreat approaches, our guest speaker, Dr. Johnnie K. Seago, has provided verses to pray through in spiritual preparation. Feel free to choose several a day for meditation. Below the scriptures is a Spotify playlist the worship team created. We are praying over the next few days you will as Colossians 3:16 says,

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your heart to God” (ESV).

Call to Prayer:

“The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:35-36).

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus^[from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:5-11).

“We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:3-10).

“For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:16-18).

“[B]ut these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

“[R]emember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:12-16).

“[H]aving been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:12-17).

Call to Worship: Spotify “It’s In the Bag” Call to Worship

Registration Form: “It’s In the Bag” Registration Form

The Women’s Ministry Team at Dorcas Wills Memorial Baptist Church has been praying for each and every one of you. We are excited about what God has in store for each of us as we fellowship together March 4-5th. It is not too late to sign up! The above link will take you to the registration form and more are available in the church office.