Marco Sanchez (Dragondarkness30) > Recent Status Updates

What an amazing book of songs and testimonies that God has worked through and made come to pass. I can't wait to read the next one.

What a great ending story to this book as "And Now My Lifesong Sings." The story about a man who was a Prodigal lived the life of the world, and God grabbed him out of all that and changed his life forever. He became a member of a church and now serves in it. His testimony is what God saved him from. In a way we are all that same person for those who it's happened to and those who it can happen to. God is the reason.

Prodigal a song that is meant for everyone a song about doing what is required of us by Jesus. We do all the things and wonder why things are not working and the one thing He asks us is, "Do you truly have a relationship with Me?" We need to come back to Him. He will show us He is all we need. When we go back to the world, we are living in a religion. We need to push the world away from us and come back to Jesus...

This chapter really shows what it means to be in Christ and hold onto what Christians truly go through in persecution of their faith. Lucci's story is one that I will never forget. "In Me" really gets down to the heart of the matter in the enemy attacking be a of our Faith in the One True God. Lucci never renounced his faith in Jesus. This chapter really opened my eyes to what it really means to believe...

This chapter was based on the song Father, Spirit, Jesus and how we worship. Is it more worship just to act on it or are we trying to raise our intentions to God talking to Him. Are we just watching what everyone else is doing and following what they do saying the things they say or are we really going to God with our prayers in worship. That's how we should really be praying.

He should be a part of our entire week. Are we getting into His Word? Are we making time for Him besides on Sunday at our prayer meetings. What makes us believe we should be like the world do people at our places of work know we are Christian. Are we so caught up in our lives we miss Him Jerusalem did the first time? Are we repeating that now are we not getting ready for His second coming? Will we miss that, too?

This chapter made me think as I have just recently had to talk to someone about this. The chapter is on the song While You Were Sleeping. It just opens your eyes to the fact that we as a nation used to be more Christian than we are now. Do we cut out parts of our lives to live life how we want in compartments, or do we make time for God only on Sundays. Do we make God a priority in our lives...

The song is Who Am I from the first record. Her direct answer to her prayer. God had a plan for her life all along. On tour the band makes it a point to meet everyone they don't put their focus on themselves for if it wasn't for all the people who make the show come together, they wouldn't be performing. They make it a point to minister to them and learn about their families and their lives as they listen...

A chapter on what it means to do and listen to God when He calls you to do what he planned for you to do. This was based on the song "Set Me Free." God has a plan for His people we just need to acknowledge that. There is a story in this chapter I can relate to when the woman in the story prays to God to send her a sign when she is about to turn her life around God answers her question it's a song that repeats...

This chapter strips everything away...Love Them Like Jesus. Sometimes, we have to listen to people and be there for people, let them talk. We need them to see us as Jesus would. We don't need to have all the right answers, give them scripture or say something that would make them feel better, all we need to do is Love Them Like Jesus.

Have I shared my heart with someone? Yes one person in particular. I felt comfortable and loved that I wasn't judged for who I was starting to become. This not only spoke on Mark's testimony to this song and topic, but it could help anybody to see how important they really are and they don't have to put on a face or put up walls.

Wow this chapter couldn't be more real...Stained Glass Masquerade. I'll just summarize this chapter by the questions we ask ourselves. Who Am I as a Christian am I putting on a face for my work life and church life? Am I living in two different worlds? Are you open about your faith? Yes I know fellow believers I can trust. Do they know what's going on in my life only part of it...

"Does Anybody Hear Her" also known as the Girl Song in Mark's head a song he's been trying to write for years, but it didn't come to completion until the second album. It's about that one girl we either as a church help or ignore. The things she is going through and we don't want to help her. The front she has to put on because she wants to feel accepted from anyone she meets. Parents were not there for her...

Her mom had the strength of Job in the Bible. She had remembered how her daughter had wanted to go to Heaven when she was younger. So when she passed it was a beautiful moment for her she had so much peace that her daughter was now playing in Heaven. The song took on a whole new meaning on 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina God seemed to let this song affect so many lives at the right time. I will never forget this story...

What a chapter. I have no words to say how this chapter affected me..."Praise You In This Storm" one of my favorite songs on the Lifesong album. The story that the song is about is so emotional it's about a little girl Erin who fought a fight with cancer that eventually took her life she had always wanted to go to Heaven but not like this...

It would be an anthem of worship, he changed the sound just as he started to play it in concert he wanted to raise the people's awareness of what true worship sounded like, and the true idea of living holy. As he says, "It needed to raise their holy hands" Are we honoring God in genuine worship? Did you sign your day for God? Good chapter it makes you think.

Lifesong the start of the second album. Mark attended a Third Day concert and realized his week didn't glorify God so why was he putting his hands up to worship the Lord he says they were empty. He wanted the message of Lifesong to be the theme to the album. He was
a little clueless as what to sing as he had friends who were helping him as what to write, what God wanted him to sing. He wanted it to be an anthem...

The beginning of the second album Lifesong. One of my favorite albums from Casting Crowns. The second part of this chapter is a little convicting, are we trying to do things in our own power, or are we trying to let God do it. One situation I have been through a friendship that's ended over what God wants for us what we needed to tell them. Are we truly seeking those who walk with God on a daily basis for our needs.

We need to not only talk the talk but also walk the walk when we read the words on the screen when we are worshipping are we really taking that into consideration and living by it and truly believing it in that moment. Our life should be a "Life of Praise" as the last song on the first album. Are we truly making enough time for God during the week in our Bible Study time. Can we improve it. We need faith discipline.

I can relate to this chapter on "Life of Praise," being a God Imitator. There are times when we get so caught up in the things of life that we forget, me included that we are supposed to be like what God has envisioned us to be as His people. We walk into church and need to be put back together again because we were living like the world, and it's left us empty again...

A short little chapter on the song Glory and how the Lord brought it to be along with influence by a friend of Mark's and how we get to worship God with everything that we are.

A short little chapter on Praise You with the Dance. A reminder of how God can pull you out from anywhere like the short story of the preacher who lost his voice until God restored it to what it was before. It came back so unexpectedly it happened on tape and witnessed by students as they cheered. God pulled us out of darkness in Colossians 1:13-14. We have a reason to praise. He turns our mourning into dancing...

His chapter on "Here I Go Again" is very heavy as it is based on Mark's friend who witnessed tragedy and then took his own life. It's about how Mark wishing he could tell him how much Jesus loved him but it was the last time. How time was not his friend. After he witnessed the tragedy he disappeared, and that's when he was found. This is a very heavy chapter. This song is affecting those who are now coming to Christ.

American Dream, wow, that chapter really opened up my eyes as a father myself. It's about how much the man in the song works himself to the point where nothing matters he pushes family life aside and disappears from his kids all for his job. Nothing should matter more than family and your children a job, and that life should never take over. Mark talks about how the song has impacted dad's when he sings it live...

This chapter was about "Who Am I" the song from their first album. This chapter described a sad story from a young couple who the girlfriend passed away in a car accident, and the boyfriend is telling the story of how she used to sing their songs and see God through them. This seemed to be a special song it wasn't completed for a while. God brought the rest of the song together. God wanted Mark to know who He was.

I loved this chapter I really focused on what Mark was saying this was one of my favorite songs that he wrote Voice of Truth took on a whole different perspective for me in my life. I was just beginning to discover who God was.
To know this song was first titled "Fear" that's how I came to God. Just knowing Steven Curtis Chapman worked on this song, now that's cool. He wrote a whole new part in the song...

It's amazing to see the story behind how Casting Crowns started. It was a very humble beginning as Mark was a youth pastor before the music career started. He was just like us, a normal believer and how he started in church. It turns to their first hit song, "If We Are the Body," and how some stations didn't want to play the song because it was too preachy. He mentions how God changed the words to simple truth...

This chapter is centered on that girl everyone sees and judges she has been in a couple of Casting Crowns albums. The girl everyone judges in the end, the one getting an abortion, the one in the car next to you. The one in the checkout line, does anybody hear her does anybody see. We need to dust off our swords and seek His face. This is what God wants.

I loved this chapter he talks about how God has been guiding his song writing and how there is no way he could have come up with certain lines as he calls them as they were "God Lines" something God placed in his spirit and how God is using Casting Crowns to put His Message out there. He was inspired by so many greats in Christian Music as Steven Curtis Chapman, DC Talk, Chris Rice, and more, but God writes for him.

Ok I'm hooked to this book it's an easy read. I like how Mark shows how he is just like us human with flaws and is dyslexic but He allowed God to use him and God shaped him and put him on the path He chose for him which eventually became the singer of Casting Crowns. I love his testimony...