Bits and Pieces…
Throughout this learning journey, information has been given to me, the disciple messenger, in bits and pieces. The following message is no different. When dates are appropriate, they have been added.
Songs used in tough love messaging: You Don’t Know Me…
Early in my calling journey — late December 2014 and early January 2015 — God revealed to me his love for songs. After that, he showed how songs can be used as teaching tools. The following is one example of using songs as a tough-love teaching tool:
First, God had a message for Carrie Underwood: “I know what is in your heart – a love of all creation, all creatures great and small. That love is needed for what I am asking you to do. I have given you a special talent. Now, I am giving you a calling: Use your talent and your Christian heart to teach others ways to escape the darkness and ways that will lead them to the Light. The song ‘Jesus, Take the Wheel’ (Brett James, Hillary Lindsey, Gordie Sampson) is a good example of using a song to teach a lesson.
What follows was given to a disciple messenger in 6/15/18 and was meant for Carrie Underwood at the appropriate time. Now is that time: Tell her that the words to ‘I Told You So’ (Randy Travis) could be rewritten to be about a person who had once turned away from a relationship with me but is now seeking my forgiveness and a return to that relationship. He said: Remember how I have told all to knock (pray) and I’ll answer, seek and you will find, repent and be forgiven, go and sin no more, love me as I have first loved you is all I ask? If all remember those things, then you will understand how I Told You So can be used for teaching an important lesson. “I told you so, Oh, I told you so. I knew someday you’d come seeking and asking me to forgive your sin. I told you so, you had to know that I’m always near to hear your fear and heal your broken heart again.” Then a response from the one seeking that renewed relationship, “Oh, you told me so. Oh, I should know,” followed by “I told you so. Oh, I told you so. You are my child who no matter what you’ve done, I’ll always welcome back with love and grace. If you get down on your knees and ask, all your sins I’ll forgive and forever erase.”
Lastly, he added for Carrie: “May your songs always teach positive life lessons. May you serve as a model to others on how to use talents in service.”
He then used the songs ‘You Don’t Know Me,’ (Eddy Arnold and Cindy Walker) ‘Gentle On my Mind,’ (John Hartford) ‘Always on my Mind,’ (Wayne Carson, Johnny Christopher, Mark James) ‘Accentuate the Positive’ (Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer) and ‘Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus’ (Helen H. Lemmel) to teach the difference between what we people consider religious, moral, and Christian and what God considers being Christian, what is right and what is wrong, and what he wants and needs us to know.
Using ‘You Don’t Know Me’ as a model, God makes it personal saying, “You raise arms and hands in the air in praise of me in your worship, then go about your life showing that you don’t know me at all. If you truly knew me and were seeking to follow my ways, you would act and speak outside of church in such a way as to show a Christian heart.”
At this point, he paused to teach a lesson by giving examples of what he meant by a Christian heart — this has been revealed before, but it is to be included again:
*He said that he placed the heart a little to the left in the body for a reason. That reason is to keep us speaking and acting a little to the left so that more people can be helped. (Although God is not political, he uses left here in political terms so that his meaning can be clearly understood.)
*He also said that middle C on a standard piano is a little to the left of center. It is a centering point, bringing us back to middle C –a little to the left of center– for more harmony.
You may wonder, as did the one to whom this was revealed, if it is true that the heart is a little to the left of center in the human body and if middle C on the standard piano is to the left of center. Both are true as the one who had this revealed found through research. You can find this for yourself by a quick online search. Why do we doubt knowing from whence it came? Information that comes from On High is always true and will always serve as a positive guide to the way we should live.
*Most of all God says, “For proper balance in words and actions, turn your eyes upon Jesus, pay attention to his words and use them as a guide. To do so will lighten your load.”
*Having a Christian heart means one hasn’t gone too far to the right nor too far to the left – hasn’t gone to the extreme for that is excess and excess leads to sin — just a little to the left so that more people are helped. The person with a Christian heart is more balanced in thinking, not demanding of ‘my way’ but more ready and willing to work with others, to reconcile for the good of all. Most of all, the person with a Christian heart has a love for God and others. That person has taken to heart the lessons learned from the most perfect teacher of all –Jesus.
God then continued with the ‘You Don’t Know Me’ message: “If you think I want you to bear false witness against others or bear arms, especially against your fellow man, you don’t know me. If you think I am okay when you do or say things that cause, or might cause, harm to others, you don’t know me. If you think it is okay with me that you make up false stories or pass along false information, you don’t know me. If you think I want children separated from their asylum-seeking parents, you don’t know me. If you think I want you to build up treasures on earth and selfishly guard those treasures instead of sharing them with ones who have unfulfilled needs, you don’t know me. If you think it’s okay with me for you to wish for yourself good health care, plenty of food, a good education, a safe home, but deny others of what you wish for yourself, you don’t know me. If you think I am okay with your demanding that the commandments be posted on walls in government buildings, but you pay no attention to the commandments that should be written in the heart, you don’t know me. And if you think it is okay with me that you use those government buildings to carry out unjust, harmful actions, then you don’t know me. If you think it is okay with me that you seek to have Bible reading and studies in school but fail to follow its teachings then you don’t know me. If you think I am okay with shutting people out of church or from gathering around the communion table because they don’t match your certain set standards, you don’t know me. If you think I am okay with seeing anyone beaten or abused physically or verbally because of skin color, gender, age, religious or political beliefs, or any other excuse you might give, you don’t know me. If you think I am okay with your ignoring ones who are hungry, thirsty, naked, in prison, sick, a stranger, you don’t know me.”
“If you think I am okay with your demanding public prayer, but never have you knock at my door for a private walk and talk, you don’t know me. And, about prayer — If you think it is okay with me that you pray the prayer that Jesus taught you then by words and actions show that you did not mean what you prayed, you don’t know me. If you declare in prayer that my name is hallowed then use my name in vain and think it is okay with me, you don’t know me. If your words and actions show daily that it is not my will you are following but your own, or that you are a follower of the will of others who have words and actions that cause harm, and you think it is okay with me, you don’t know me. If you pray that your trespasses be forgiven in the same way you forgive the trespasses by others against you then treat others you feel have trespassed against you with wrathful revenge or you support ones who threaten, or worse, carry out wrathful revenge, and you think that is okay with me, you don’t know me. If you ask not to be led into temptation but delivered from evil all the while you are carrying out works of evil or tempting others to do evil’s work or are following doers of evil or tempters of others to do evil and think that is okay with me, you don’t know me. Mean what you pray and pray what you mean.”
“If unjust laws are made and carried out by government officials and you see this and do nothing because you think these are ones in the right, ones who think like you do, ones of the same political persuasion, so it must be okay with me, you don’t know me. If those same government officials make it their stated goal to make ones not thinking as they think, not wearing the same political label they wear, fail in whatever good those others are trying to accomplish then they themselves fail to get anything helpful done and, in fact, cause harm by refusing to reconcile differences or cooperate in any way to get good accomplished and think this is okay with me, they don’t know me and neither do you if you continue to support them in any way.”
“If you fail to respond to the hungry, thirsty, the downtrodden, the imprisoned, the stranger, the sick, the poorly clothed, the ones being treated unjustly, the uneducated, the least of these, you have done it to me. If you have witnessed injustices done by others and you have stood by and let it go, you are no better than the priest and the Levite in the parable of the good Samaritan. You have been complicit and that is not okay with me. You don’t know me if you think I approve simply because you wear a particular political or religious label or because you call yourself the holiest of holies or because you say ‘Merry Christmas’. The false leaders don’t know me and neither do you if you follow them, vote for them, or support them in any way.”
“If you have failed to take care of the earth and its inhabitants as I have charged you to do and think it is okay with me, then you don’t know me.”
Help was then offered, “I want to be the One who is always on your mind, the One who is gentle on your mind, so that we can communicate. Listen for my still, small voice that will comfort and guide you in the way you should go. If you turn your eyes upon Jesus and follow his ways, you will be on the right path. I am your Father in Heaven. I am yearning for a relationship with you. I look forward to the time when you show that you have opened your heart as a dwelling place for me, for it is then, at long last, I can say that you know me.”
As an additional way of giving guidance, God used another song reference saying, “Your words and actions should accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.”
God wants you to know that though he is using ‘tough love’ ways by telling of things done wrong, in other words, naming the negatives that you need to eliminate from your lives, it is the positive ways that will help lead you to the Light onto which he wants you to latch your words and actions. There is no need to bother with the in-betweens for they are excess and will just cause confusion.
God finished by adding this positive message, “By accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative, you will find you have more joy, more contentment in your life. You will feel better about yourself and others. The health in all areas of your life will improve.”
On December 10, 2021, several years after the above was given, another song reference –You’ll Never Walk Alone (Rogers and Hammerstein) — was added for comfort and encouragement: “If you give me a dwelling place in your heart and allow yourself to be guided by my Spirit, you have no need to fear no matter how dark the times or the place in which you find yourself. You’ll Never be Walking Alone, so have hope in your heart knowing that I am with you. Know, too, that at the end of every storm, there’s a rainbow in the golden sky. The birds will sing their sweet songs once again. Light will push away the darkness. Good will prevail.”
Upcoming: Woes in Bible times