My Sin

Though this song is named "My Sin," it could really be named "My Savior" since the song is really about all the ways that Jesus saves us from our sin. Sin is man's most deadly enemy - a sickness far beyond any bacteria or virus we've ever encountered. Sin has run its course through every part of man - body, mind, heart, and soul. And sin is not like a normal sickness - just something we catch from others or the environment. We were both born natures already infected with sin, and are complicit and morally responsible for what our sin natures cause us to do. Sin is such an important biblical concept that the Lord gives us many metaphors to help us understand it and its effects. This song explores three of those metaphors, and how the Father and Son relate to us in those metaphors. As you read, listen, or sing this song, think not simply about how powerful your sin is, but more importantly, all that your Savior Jesus is to you and that he is able to save you from every aspect of sin's terrible force in your life.

Sin as…	Man	God	Jesus
Debt	Debtor	Creditor	Surety
Enmity	Enemy	Violated One	Mediator
Crime	Criminal	Judge	Substitute

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He Alone Is God

The Hebrew word hallelujah (or alleluia) which means literally "praise the Lord," has been used as an exclamation of praise not only by the ancient Hebrews, but in the early Church, throughout the history of the Church, and even today. Following the pattern of the Psalms, it has become integrally wed to music throughout all the cultures of the world. This song uses the word "alleluia" as a triumphant exclamation of praise for who God is and what He has done. The verses direct us to God's eternal character - dwelling in holy splendor as a spirit ("beyond our gaze"), the God of love, and reigning over all creation. We are reminded of the Son's worthiness to receive our "alleluias" as well - we will forever marvel at the grace He showed in giving Himself up to death to save undeserving sinners. In this song we also look forward to the day when our feeble alleluias will join with a vast number of believers and angelic creatures in the new world, praising God with what are sure to be earth-shattering roars.

This song is loosely based on the hymn "The God of Abraham Praise" by Thomas Olivers (1725-1799)

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The Love of Calvary

One of the most difficult attributes about God to understand and accept is His amazing love towards humanity. In a Christian culture that has been saturated with verses like John 3:16 ("for God so loved the world...") this may seem ridiculous; you may ask something like "what's so hard about believing God loves me - after all, I've heard it all my life!" When we consider the holy and righteous character of God juxtaposed against our unclean and rebellious character, His love shouldn't make sense. There's no reason why our heavenly Father should love creatures who He made to know and worship Him, yet worship anything but Him in their pride and rebellion. Yet He has proved the depths of this perplexing love in sending His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to rescue us from our sins. In love, God sent Jesus to cleanse sinful people from their sins by His atoning blood, and progressively transform them to be like him in holiness and righteousness. Based upon the prayer "Love Lustres at Calvary," from The Valley of Vision, this song continues the apostolic tradition of expressing endless wonder in the boundless and perplexing love revealed in the Cross of Christ (Gal. 6:14). The cry of every true believer's heart is to not only apprehend the love of God more clearly, but to rest in it and be conformed to it in his or her personal character and daily life more fully.

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Because of One the World Was Cursed

The doctrine of imputation is one of the most precious truths in all of Scripture yet it is often neglected or misunderstood. One pastor who understood the doctrine and wrote about it in poems and hymns is Augustus Toplady, one of the greatest English hymn writers. Scattered lines from throughout some of his poems have been edited and assembled, and new lines have been added to form one complete hymn which teaches what imputation is and demonstrates how it should move us to worship. The gospel has sometimes been called the "Great Exchange" because through faith in Jesus, God the Father takes our sin and its punishment and gives it to Jesus, and takes Jesus' perfect record of obedience (His righteousness) and gives it to us. Not only do we stand before God forgiven, but also clean and acceptable before Him because we have the very righteousness of Jesus. This truth gives us confidence, boldness, and joy as we approach God in worship now and in eternity.

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You Make Me Beautiful

This song was born out of the author's own experience of the love of God. The Bible portrays the love God has for people using just about every human relationship as an analogy. This is because God's love is so far above man's love that every earthly experience of love shows us just a sliver of the way God loves us. One of the most powerful experiences of love we can have in this world is romantic love - the love a husband and wife share for each other. God uses this analogy for the way in which He loves us throughout the Bible, but perhaps nowhere as pointedly (and explicitly) as the book of Song of Solomon. In 6:3 the wife proclaims to her husband "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," a picture of the intimacy Christians can experience with Jesus. This song tells the love story of God with His people - how He sought them out when they had rebelled and were filthy (Ezekiel 16), washed them and made them beautiful with His own beauty, and then grants that they might treasure Him and anticipate His return.

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I’ll Never Forsake You

This is an original song based loosely on a hymn titled "O Zion, Afflicted" by John Roberts (1822-1877). It is a reminder of God's covenant love and faithful promise to work all things for good for His children (Romans 8:28), a truth we desperately need in times of darkness and peril. Whether you are suffering under great trial or are in a season of relative comfort, this song will remind you of God's love and care for you. Charles Spurgeon (1834-92) quotes from the original hymn in this excerpt from "Beside Still Waters," which serves as a great introduction to the new song as well:

When your faith endures many conflicts, and your spirit sinks low, do not condemn yourself. There is a reason for your season of heaviness. Great soldiers are not made without war. Skillful sailors are not trained on the shore. It appears that if you are to become a great believer, you will be greatly tested. If you are to be a great help to others, you must pass through their trials. If you are to be instructed in the things of the kingdom, you must learn from experience. The uncut diamond has little brilliance, and the unthreshed corn feeds no one, and the untried believer is of little use or beauty. There are GREAT BENEFITS to come from your trials and depression. The one who is much plowed and often harrowed will thank God if the result is a larger harvest to the praise and glory of God by Jesus Christ. If your face is now covered with sorrow, the time will come when you will bless God for that sorrow. The day will come when you will see great gain from your losses, your crosses, your troubles and your affliction. From your affliction this glory shall spring, and the deeper your sorrow the louder you'll sing. - Charles Spurgeon, "Beside Still Waters"

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How Beautiful the Mystery

This Christmas hymn was written by Eric Schumacher in 2000, and Jeff Bourque and David Ward wrote a new tune for it in December 2010. You can find the original hymn text for use with the tune MANOAH (When All Your Mercies) at the hymn text page.

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You Are My Righteousness

This is a song about how we need Jesus to be more than simply a payment voucher to cover the debt we owe to God because of our rebellion. Even if our record were wiped clean of offenses, we wouldn't have any goodness, credit, or merit with which we might be made acceptable to God. The Christian life is a battle to remain on the way of grace, a battle where we are continually stumbling off the path into one of two ditches. First, we tend to wallow in what looks like contrition, but is actually unbelief that God would forgive us simply because of what Jesus has done. We think that by our tears we can somehow prove that we are sorry enough for God to forgive us. We can also fall away from grace by acting as if we don't need it - because we've got our lives under control and are, essentially, pleasing God by being faithful. We can overlook certain sins and feel proud that we're not flagrantly committing others. The song is a cry for help, a cry that God would give us faith to believe that Jesus is our only hope to be made acceptable before God. By His death He bore the penalty for our failure, and by His perfect life, the credit for which He gives us by faith, His success becomes ours.

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Though I Was Born an Orphan

One of the central applications of the Gospel is to imitate it. Israel was to love the sojourner because they were sojourners in the land of Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:16). If they, when fatherless, widowed and homeless, were fed, clothed and sheltered by the Lord, they should display his glory in their treatment of others.

Likewise, James says to Christians (James 1:27), “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.” James is not content to refer merely to God. Rather, he writes of “God, the Father,” reminding his readers of the privileged relationship they have with God—namely, He has become their “Father.”

As believers, we may call God “Father” because of our adoption as “sons” in Jesus Christ. We were born “sons of disobedience” and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:1-3). But the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, chose us and predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:3-6).

He sent his Son to live a life of full obedience, to die on the cross for our sins, and to be raised from the dead. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we are adopted as sons of God and become heirs (Galatians 3-4). Because we are sons, the Father sends the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!” To keep us from falling back into fear, the Spirit of adoption bears witness to us that we are children of God, fellow heirs with Christ, with whom we will be glorified (Romans 8:15-17). God the Father graciously makes his home with us until he calls us to his house (John 14).

If God the Father has blessed us with this great and altogether undeserved adoption, we will show like care to “orphans and widows in their affliction.” In application of the Gospel, Christians become people who display the greatness of their Father through their care for those in need.

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The Fury of the Wind

This text by Eric Schumacher is a beautiful mixing of the fiery descriptions and words of God in Job and the need that seeing such wrath stirs within the human soul to “flee to Christ.” We would all be “knocked off our high horse” if God were ever to appear to us the way He did to Job in the final five chapters of the book. What a frightening and humbling experience that would be! Our only sane response would be to fall before the feet of the Holy One. It is this very realization of our mortal and sinful selves that shows us the need that we have for the Holy God to make provision for us (no other could possibly do so!). God the Son is the only one who can “make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24).

This text can also be set to a traditional tune.

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