From ‘The Love of Jesus’ (Valley of Vision- Puritan Prayer Collection)
‘…My heart melts at the love of Jesus,
My brother, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh,
Married to me, dead for me, risen for me;
He is mine and I am his,
Given to me as well as for me;
I am never so much mine as when I am his,
Or so much lost to myself until lost in him;
Then I find my true manhood.
But my love is frost and cold, ice and snow;
Let his love warm me,
Lighten my burden,
Be my heaven;
May it be more revealed to me in all its influences
That my love to him may be more fervent and glowing;
Let the mighty tide of his everlasting love
Cover the rocks of my sin and care…’
These guys definitely knew how to pray. These past few months my wife and I have been inspired through the prayers from this book that have inspired the CD by the same title, released by Sovereign Grace Ministries. Its well worth getting a hold of if you haven’t already got it. There is this awesome song that we recently used on our youth camp to help explain the Trinity that is addressed to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Those of us who wish to see the church become more Trinitarian will love it I’m sure!
Anyone been listening to any good worship music recently? I’m always interested to hear of any good Jesus centered songs for congregational singing that people have come across.
‘A sedate middle-aged lady next to me is transformed into a wailing ecstatic. As the prayers flow, her voice rises to a near scream. Stretching out her arm, she begins to rub her hand up and down my back. ‘Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!’ she screams. The pressure from her hand increases and it moves up to my head, ruffling my hair one way then the other. ‘Halle-LU-JAH,’ she crescendoes, leaping to her feet, arms flung wide above me, eyes tight shut. ‘PRAISE…THE…LORD!’ (Micael Palin in his book Himalaya)
I did laugh when I read this but I must admit it got me thinking. Part of me was saying internally ‘Oh no what a nightmare!’ and the other part was left slightly jealous of the worship in that church…not the head rubbing bit you understand!
You see I’ve been mulling over worship recently and I’ve come to the conclusion that we may not have worship licked quite as we imagine when we say succintly that worship is not what we do in church, but what we do out of church. Now of course, those of us who know our Bible’s want to say ‘Amen!’ worship isn’t just what we do in church. We are clearly to offer our bodies as ‘living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God’ because we are to have a whole life approach (Romans 12:1). But I wonder if we have gone too far.
As Wayne Grudem reminds us in his exccellent book Systematic Theology, ’worship is the activity of glorifying God in his presence with our voices and hearts’ (he knows also that worship is whole life).
Two of the results of genuine worship are according to Grudem…We delight in God: ‘in your presence there is fulness of joy, in your right hand are pleasures for evermore’ Ps 16:11. God delights in us: ‘The LORD, your God, is in your midst…he will rejoice over you with gladness…’ Zeph 3:17. He makes a number of other points we don’t have time to go into here such as it being a time when God can draw near to us.
We aren’t only to sing, but we are to sing and praise the Lord: ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God’ Col 3:16.
We love the word of God and treasure its preaching in the reformed tradition, but we must remember that there is immense value in musical worship. Its not merely something to be glossed over, so that we can get to the ‘good bit’. It is to be uplifting and passionate, in the spirit and in truth, in confidence as we praise Christ for granting us divine access through his death on the cross. It is to be a time of intimacy, delighting in Christ ‘in spirit and truth’ and uplifting his name as we will one day for all eternity. All of this is also worship- ask the lady!
