Francesca Battistelli - If We're Honest (Behind The Song)

[@flip_till_you_drop1672]

Love this song so much

[@fgbowen]

agreed

[@iluvsoqr92]

I don't know if you'll see this Francesca, but I just want you to know how much this album and your other albums have meant to me. They've carried me through a recent rough patch, and they draw me closer to God. When I listen to your songs, I feel like I'm before the throne of God uttering to Him my heart's cry. This heart's cry is verbalized through your songs. Thank you for all that you do! =D

[@TraceyBlack_]

This is such a powerful song, I love it so much for many reasons but I truly just feel connected to it's message and the hope that mercy offers, if we truly live and love with integrity. Thank you for such a beautiful song ❤

[@ambercook9206]

Francesca, Thank you so much for sharing this song and the story behinnd it! It speaks straight to my heart! I spent years hiding my past, and beleiveing Satan's lie that I only needed to confess to God, but the Holy Spirit kept working on my heart and my fear until it finally broke through! James 5:16 really opened my eyes to what needed to happen for true healing and true communion to take place.... It has been hard, and truth is harder than a lie, but God is so good! He is my rock, and I have learned that obedience is better than sacrafice.... If we just say yes to God, He takes care of the rest! It may be hard, but it is still what is best and through His providential care healing takes place!

[@alfredtheanimatorillustrator]

YOur recent album Francesca is the best album I've head. Your music is inspiring to the church and Personally to me. My favorite from your album is I think : Giants Fall or Choose to Love (I can't choose haha) keep making music. :)

[@lit_littlepotato4315]

Francesca your my favorite 106.7" klove" singer!!!!!!btw u have to be honest😋😝😝😝😝😝😝😋!!!!!!

[@fgbowen]

Fran. dear-heart, don't know if you'll see that this, but just wanted to say - the song is outstanding, and it's not surprising it is your favorite. I especially love the Bridge. "It would change our lives It would set us free" 😭, me every time. And the harmonic progression there is perfection. You are an outstanding songwriter. - the Grace of Christ be with you always in increasing measure.

[@Bellalourenco2024]

Amazing singer. Love to sing and am 18. Isabelle Lourenco (KZbin channel)

[@kimfleury]

James 5.16 is part of the instruction, but not the whole. Certainly, those who take at least the partial instruction are taking a step on the right path, but it's only the beginning. Here's the problem with taking only part of the instruction, as some of my friends do: I have some friends who interpret James 5.16 on its own as meaning "confess your sins to one another -- either whoever you've wronged, or an elder or a pastor in the church, or even a fellow churchgoer." That's led to some problems as not all of the people who hear these confessions are discreet, and gossip spreads. There have even been some pastors who call out the repentant sinner on stage. I have other friends whose churches have public confessions, where they have to stand up in front of everyone and list the sins they've committed. The point of confession, as James explains, is forgiveness...but from whom? Of course we're supposed to forgive one another, but we're supposed to forgive even if the one who wrongs us doesn't confess to us. And there's a human tendency to hold on to resentment, which is a very difficult devil to overcome. Once it takes root in a community it gains power. It's all well and good if you're dealing with someone who has the spiritual maturity to avoid feeling resentment, and when it's a one-on-one confession in private. It's another matter entirely when someone lacks that maturity, and instead of avoiding resentment will embrace it and go off on some rationale of "righteous anger." This happens very often, causing upheavals in churches, as cliques begin to form to fight against one another. I've seen whole churches break apart over this, and it all started with indiscreet confession. Oh, sure, there might be some underlying powerplay going on, with one group wanting one thing and another wanting something else -- or with someone who wants his or her own way who won't listen to anyone else .... but the minute people find out that so-and-so is a sinner, all hell breaks loose. And it's preposterous because we're all sinners -- even or especially if we're involved in a conflict over how things should be run. And some of my friends were run out of their churches because of their sins, even though they confessed to one another or to the whole congregation, even though they asked for forgiveness, even though they offered to do what they could to make it right. James didn't instruct us to confess like that. James 5.14-16 reads: Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests* of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man. And the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray for one another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much. *Some translations read "presbyter," which means "priest." So where did these presbyters, or priests, come from? In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 6, verses 1-7, we read the account of the growing infant Church, in which up to that point the Apostles made personal visits to the widows each day to bring them the Sacrifice of the Lord's Supper ("the daily distribution," and "to serve at table," were idioms the early Christians used -- it didn't mean bringing them groceries; anyone could have done that). Up until that point, only the 12 Apostles, and the 70 who were anointed by Jesus as bishops to go out and preach the Good News to the ends of the earth, were allowed to distribute the Lord's Supper. But here we read that the Apostles give instruction to the community to choose seven reputable men who are filled with the Holy Spirit, and wisdom, whom the Apostles then *lay hands on* to anoint them with additional graces from the Holy Spirit so that they, too, become infused with authority conferred by Jesus, allowing them to distribute the Lord's Supper. These are called "deacons." Later in Acts, we read that the bishops of the various Christian communities began to choose deacons to anoint as presbyters, again, by *laying on of hands*. Not just anyone was allowed to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Lord's Supper, and not just anyone was allowed to distribute it. So this is how the anointing -- or ordination in Latin - came about. Earlier still, in the Gospel according to John, 20.19-31, we see that Jesus *breathed on* the Apostles and told them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." Jesus conferred His authority through physical contact. He tells all of us that we must forgive one another, but He only gave *authority* to the ones He breathed on (there were 10 present, because Thomas had distanced himself from the others; but when Thomas returned and believed, it's safe to assume that Jesus breathed on him, too). This wasn't the everyday run of the mill kind of forgiveness that everyone is required to offer for their own sins to be forgiven. In the Parable of the Debtor, in Matthew 18.21-35, the Master who forgives a huge debt (that would take something like 180,000 years to pay off) is God; the Debtor is each of us. We all -- each and every one of us -- owes God an enormous debt, for which only the Blood of Jesus can obtain forgiveness, and only through His authority can be be forgiven. He can forgive us individually if we repent in a perfect act of contrition, but you don't have the authority on your own to claim the Blood of Jesus, and you can't accurately judge if your contrition is perfect. The evidence of this is when people who confess directly to God still have spiritual troubles and vexations. If you go to the one who has received His Divine Authority through the physical contact of *laying on of hands* (bishops and priests) then your sins are surely forgiven, for "[t]he Father loves the Son, and has given everything into His hand." -- John 3.35; and Jesus didn't come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world -- John 12.47; but whoever rejects His teaching is condemned -- John 12.48, because the teaching comes from the Father -- John 12.49, and "[h]e who hears you hears Me," -- Luke 10.16. Jesus didn't tell the crowds, "He who hears you hears Me," He only said it to the Apostles, on whom He breathed and whom He anointed...and who, in turn, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, laid hands on those they anointed as deacons and presbyters. He didn't tell the crowds, "Whose sins you retain are retained" -- He only said that to the Apostles when He breathed on them. He told the rest of us we have to forgive if we want the Father to forgive us. Big difference in authority. So "confess with your mouth one to another" when the priest is laying hands on the sick person, praying over him and anointing him with [holy] oil, means confess to the properly anointed priest ... not to just anybody. And the big difference between confessing to the anointed priest and confessing to an elder, or a pastor outside of the Apostolic line of ordination, or the whole congregation, is that the priest will go to jail rather than reveal anything you have confessed. He will not treat you any differently -- no matter what you confess to him, he won't treat you as a pariah...unlike those congregations that hold people's sins against them. Many people HATE that priests won't reveal what sinners have confessed. Some priests have even died rather than reveal confessions in totalitarian regimes. In most places in the U.S. the law requires priests to testify when called, and to reveal what has been confessed -- but priests only follow the law insofar as to show up in courts so that they can publicly refuse to reveal confessions. And they go to jail, choosing to obey God rather than man. (Prosecutors know this, so they rarely bother to call priests to testify, because it's just a waste of taxpayer dollars to put the priest on trial and hold them in jail for no reason other than punishment). When you confess your sins to a priest, your sins are buried in the confessional so deep that satan can't get to them and use them against you. No wonder satan wants confessions to be public! He knows he can use revealed sins against you! There's only one way you can know that he can't get to them, and that's to confess the way Jesus taught us: to the consecrated one whom He ordains.

[@frangordon9215]

Life without wearing masks….how great that would be, especially in the church.