The Solid Rock (Gospel Feel)
This is a harmonization of Bradbury's popular tune
(SOLID ROCK) with a gospel ("black" gospel) feel.
Posts for the ‘Songs’ Category
When Sorrow Comes
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.
Go and Send and Pray
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!
My Precious Savior Gave His All
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."
Beyond Measure
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."
Help Me Remember
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."
So I Will Come
We never move past the need to meditate deeply on the suffering that Jesus endured for our sins. Without reflecting often on the unjust suffering of our glorious friend and king we can easily slide further and further into complacency and be unaffected by the magnitude of what took place at Calvary. The spotless Lamb of God died for us - unworthy, helpless sinners entrenched in our rebellion, intent on slaying Him and usurping His authority over us. The song begins by inviting all to come and behold Jesus dying on the cross that they might find the endless and abiding love of God. The chorus answers this invitation, declaring that we will indeed come and remember that mercy moved God to satisfy the demands of righteousness by sending His own Son to bear the punishment for our sins. In the second verse we cry with hymn-writer John Newton that the cross might continue to pierce our hearts as we remember that it was for our sins that Jesus suffered and died.
Irresistible Grace
The doctrines of grace are sometimes affectionately referred to as a “family secret.” Many of us who now cherish God’s sovereignty in our salvation were not aware of these precious truths when we came to know the Lord. While they are certainly not to be kept secret, a person does not need a firm grasp of them in order to surrender their life to Jesus and trust in His saving work on the cross to pay for their sins and reconcile them to God. That is what this song is about. The original anonymous 19th century author says “I sought the Lord and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me.” We hear the gospel invitation that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13) and respond in faith, only to look back with a biblically informed perspective and realize that it was really God who gave us our faith and Him who was really seeking us. The Bible says that before we were saved we were “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1) and that we did not seek for God (Romans 3:11) But God stepped into our self-absorbed lives and promised that there would be people who would seek Him. Listen to how Jesus puts it in John 6:37: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” Acts 10-11 recounts the story of Cornelius and his household trusting in Jesus and in 11:18 it says “God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.” Praise God for the gift of repentance and faith that enables us to seek Him! May we now stand in that same grace that irresistibly drew us!
Awake, My Dear Brethren
This hymn for ministers of the Gospel was adapted from a text found in "Primitive Hymns".
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.
