Acts Initiative strives to break away from Christian "feel-good" music and challenge listeners to adopt an eternal mentality of love, obedience, and devotion to Jesus and the Great Commission.
Following Jesus is not about just hearing His words but about doing what He says. Our lyrics are just a by-product of our own desperation to focus on what matters in life. As we wrestle to believe God's promises and obey Jesus in spite of how we feel, music somehow makes it easier for truth to really pierce our own hearts deeply. It helps us remember what we need to remember.
Paul must have understood how music has a way of sticking with you - after all, he told us to teach and instruct one another through song. (Colossians 3:16.) We don't really see Christian songwriters carrying out Colossians 3:16 today... instead of walking away with rich truth swimming around as songs get stuck in our heads, instead we have fluffy mantras that don't really help us walk in radical love and obedience to Jesus. We made up our mind to use music as a means to an end - the 'end' being to become more like Jesus, follow Him, and obey Him more and more in every aspect of our lives. And we pray the same for all our listeners.
Thanks for listening, and stay tuned for new song releases in the coming months and years - Lord willing!
All of this music is free to download."
(listed alphabetically - 24 songs total)
A MARCH: The Church has adopted a mindset of ease and comfort and leisure, but Jesus commanded a mindset of readiness and laboring for the Kingdom. This song is a reminder of our "call to arms" - our real rest comes later!
BETTER COUNTRY: Hebrews 11 is full of stories of people that understood what the life of a true believer should look like. This song is a meditation on those realities, and an effort to help us remember what truly matters in life.
BLESSED BE THE LORD: Psalm 68 is a beautiful psalm of promises for those that love and obey God, and it describes Him as daily bearing our burdens. This is a song of praise and exultation for such a God that would care enough to bear my lowly burdens!
CONSECRATION: If we aren't being persecuted, we're not like Jesus. This song is inspired by the heart-cries of David in his psalms, Jeremiah's prayer in Jeremiah 15, and Jesus' words that the world will hate those who follow Him.
DAY TO DAY: "..What sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God..." (2 Peter 3:11). In everything we do, this should be our biggest and most important goal.
DRY BONES: In Ezekiel 37, God shows Ezekiel a valley of dry bones. Ezekiel watches in amazement as God breathes life into the deadness and revives an entire army of souls. This is my prayer for the sleeping Church today!
FONDER STILL: Jesus said he left to prepare a place for us, and while we are here we are supposed to anxiously long and await his return as a bride longing for her bridegroom! I wrote this song inspired by the expression "absence makes the heart grow fonder."
GOT TO BE MORE: Jesus says in reference to asking God for more of His Holy Spirit "ask the Father and it will be given to you." What a promise. I want to be desperate and believing that he will respond to this kind of prayer!
GO WITH ME: "If your presence doesn't go with me, don't send me up from here," Moses prayed in Exodus 33. I think we should prayer similarly about our assignment as laborers in the Great Commission: we should go, but beg God to go with us in power.
HABAKKUK 3: This song was written very literally from Habakkuk 3, because it stands alone!!! In times of lack or of plenty, of abundance or desert, the Lord God is our strength and hope and sets our feet on high places.
HARD THING: Jesus said "Eat my flesh and drink my blood" in John chapter 6, and many of his disciples left and deserted him because they were offended. How do I respond when he asks me to do something I don't understand or like?
HEM OF YOUR GARMENT: The woman with the issue of blood had faith: faith to wait, faith to pursue, faith to believe against all odds. Jesus honored her faith and gave her what she had waited for for so long. Her life for all eternity.
HIS DAY IS COMING: You will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and one who does not. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.
I LIFT UP MY EYES: Psalm 121 famously tells us to lift up our eyes to the hills. This song is about what that looks like in real life - taking our eyes of of circumstances and the things we see in the natural and believing in Truth.
I WANT THESE SCALES TO FALL: This song is a prayer that we would be completely changed by the reality of Jesus Christ and who he is... just like Saul was 100% changed when the scales fell off his eyes and he became Paul.
LUKE 11 SONG: Our prayers should be getting answered and souls should be getting saved in great multitudes when we start loving and obeying the way we are supposed to. Let this be the day, Oh Lord!
MOUTHPIECE: So often we ask "What am I called to?" but we already have the answer: Preach the Gospel, make disciples, do the Great Commission. This song is a prayer that we would walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel.
NARROW WAY: Jesus is the straight and narrow way. It is an uncomfortable road, but so very worth it. This song is a prayer that I would not be like the Israelites who begged God to go back to Egypt because they were uncomfortable.
NOTHING BUT DUST: He knew my name before He said “Let there be light”. Before I speak He knows my words and thoughts; so who am I that He'd be mindful of me though I am nothing but dust?
PEARL: Reflections and lyrics about the merchant who sold everything he owned to buy the pearl of greatest worth... because this parable is so relevant to all who call themselves Christians.
SET MY EYES: Andrew and Peter dropped their nets immediately when Jesus asked them to follow him. Are we willing to do the same? With awareness of how inclined I am to want temporal things instead of eternal things, I wrote this song as a prayer.
SON OF DAVID: Ever wonder what was going on in the head of the blind man by the side of the road before and after Jesus healed him? This song is an allegorical representation of his story, and how it applies to us as well.
TO ISAAC: The New Testament fills us in on a little secret about Abraham: he was willing to sacrifice Isaac because he knew that God was able to raise the dead. Abraham knew God would keep his promise, even though he didn't understand it!
UNDER THE SUN: Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that everything is meaningless under the sun. That used to confuse me, until I realized that when Jesus said to "store up treasures in heaven" He was saying the same thing - heaven should be our focus.
WILL IT BE SAID: Am I living today in light of eternity? The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, so am I doing something to make my life count? Will it be said of me that I numbered my days like God tells us to, or not?
