Posted October 23rd, 2009
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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Posted July 30th, 2009
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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Posted May 16th, 2009
A Christian is one who has been set free from the power and penalty of sin, both in this life and in the next, through the only means that God has given for such redemption, the substitutionary death of Jesus who took the awful punishment for sin that we deserved. (1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2) This central message of the Christian faith is our deepest delight and surest anchor and deserves to be on our hearts and lips every day. We should never tire of singing praise to Jesus who has redeemed us from our sin and guilt. Nothing can fill our hearts with gratitude like remembering how wicked we really are, the severity of punishment that our sins deserve before a holy God, and the love that God has shown us in giving His Son to endure our punishment for us. (Romans 5:8) Jesus has taken the “wormwood and the gall” (severe bitterness associated with judgment - see Jeremiah 9:15 for an example) for us and has completed the work of reconciliation; there is no way we can add to or subtract from its saving value. Let this closing thought be the theme song of our lives: “my Beloved, He is mine, for He has made me His.”
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Posted May 1st, 2009
All of us will experience some degree of sorrow as we navigate through this fallen world, a world filled with sickness and death and the repercussions of relational sin when those most close to us hurt us by their words and deeds. How should Christians think about sorrow and the trials that are often its delivery mechanism? This song attempts to bring Biblical truth to bear on our bouts with pain and depression. If God had left us to what feel or think - to figure out His purpose in our trials by ourselves - we would surely be hopeless. But He has not left us alone; we can rest on what He has told us in His word. God tells us in Isaiah 45:6-8 that He is "the LORD, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity." God is the wise author of all of our circumstances, even our pain. That is a very difficult truth to accept, but through the gospel of God's grace we have these additional promises: "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28) and "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39) This song is a cry for the Lord to help us believe this truth for when trials and sorrows come we would be hopeless without it.
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Posted May 1st, 2009
The Lord Jesus Christ has called his people on earth to be involved in taking the Gospel to all the nations. Every believer is to be involved, whether through going, sending, or praying—and probably some of each. Yet we know that this task will be difficult. It calls us to leave behind our family, the comforts of home and enter into suffering. It requires that we sacrifice our money, our time and our reputations to point others to Christ. Unless we value Christ more than these things, we will not go or send or pray. Therefore, this song is a prayer that the Lord would move us, his people, to go and keep going until every people group on earth display the worth of Jesus Christ. It is a prayer that the Lord would free us from the shackles of our idols so that men might be set free by the truth. It is a prayer that Lord would empower us to go to every land. It is a prayer that the Lord would encourage his missionaries in difficult situations through the promise of the triumph of his Kingdom through the preaching of the Word. May the Lord be pleased to answer this prayer as it is sung from the hearts of his people!
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Posted April 25th, 2009
This song seeks to portray the amazing contrast between what Jesus possessed as the divine Son of God and what He gave up to redeem His people from their sins. 1 John 4:10 says "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." The suffering that Jesus endured to turn the Father's wrath away from us ("propitiation") demonstrates both His and His Father's amazing love for us. Jesus was willing to trade the glory and majesty that He possessed from eternity past to become a poor peasant who ultimately roamed Israel homeless and was executed for crimes He did not commit. He was willing to be tempted beyond anything we can fully understand by Satan himself, willing to be forsaken by every single person in this world, to be mocked and scorned, beaten, and crucified, all while deserving worship. Philippians 2:6-8 says "though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
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Posted April 24th, 2009
One of the things that continues to grip me about my Christian faith is that I am a Christian at all. God's patience toward me continues to leave me awed and amazed at his love. I see the same thing in Paul's testimony in 1 Timothy 1. Even after many years of faithful service to Jesus and a deep understanding of the richness of the gospel, Paul still calls himself a sinner, even the chief of sinners! But in the light of the cross he sees more than his own sinfulness; he also sees God's great mercy: "Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life" (1 Tim 1:16). Using the language of abundance from v 14, this song is a tribute to God's grace to sinners – among whom each of us can say, "I am the foremost of all."
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Posted September 25th, 2008
This song was written during a time of struggle with besetting sin. Christians are forgiven sinners, and even after becoming born again into God's family and having their debts forgiven with a full pardon struggle with ongoing sin and the proper response to it. God tells us that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) But we often fail to take our sins to God and truly repent - often out of the feeling that what we've done is inexcusable; we simply feel too dirty and guilty and unworthy of God's love. But that's the very place God wants to show us the magnitude of His grace. Even though we continue to commit acts of treason which (symbolically) nailed Jesus to the cross, He still continues to love us and demonstrated that by giving His Son to be slain on the cross. Because that has been accomplished God has promised to be for us, to never be angry again no matter how low we fall in sin. Praise God for His saving grace! The chorus is based on 2 Peter 1:9 which says that believers who are lacking godliness are "blind or short-sighted, having forgotten [their] purification from [their] former sins."
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Posted June 12th, 2008
The gospel, the good news of Jesus’ death for our sins and new life in Him, is sometimes regarded as a message that only unbelievers need to hear. When we preach about Jesus’ death for sinners only at “outreach” or “evangelistic” events or when we think to ourselves “I’ve heard this a hundred times… can’t we move on?” we demonstrate this kind of thinking. We tend to act as if Jesus’ death only has relevance in getting us in the doorway of the Christian faith. But scripture paints a much bigger picture than this. The gospel’s relevance stems from its inception in eternity past when God devised a plan to redeem people from the sin they would plunge themselves headlong into. The first verse of this song explores the themes of God’s sovereign plan of salvation and the death and resurrection of Jesus. The second verse remembers how the gospel arrived into our lives at conversion and goes on to remind us that even now we stand forgiven before God and do not need to get on God’s “good side” or get out from being on God’s “bad side.” Lastly, we rejoice in the fact that the gospel affords us our only true hope and comfort in death and will be the subject of our songs of worship for eternity as we sing the praises of the Lamb who was slain for our sin. May God’s glorious gospel of grace be sung and cherished in our lives and in our churches!
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Posted May 20th, 2008
This hymn by one of the greatest hymn writers of all time is a moving invitation for all to behold the work of Jesus on the cross and embrace His death in personal faith and repentance. He reminds us that Jesus bore our sorrows and suffered the penalty for our sins, not his. What’s more, as He died He prayed that we might be pardoned through His blood so that, in effect, we can “hear the blood speak that has answered for me.” May all who hear these glorious truths embrace God’s grace revealed to us through His Son’s death and resurrection!
The music for this text was written for a traditional hymn competition and won an honorable mention. The tune is named MAGISTER (which means teacher in Latin) because of the impact Wesley’s hymns have had on David’s songwriting.
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Reformed Praise presents Martin Luther's setting of Psalm 130 in a fresh, reflective, piano-driven setting suitable for a wide range of worship music styles.
