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THAT’S WHO I PRAISE – Brandon Lake

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

This is a fun one! The latest in a long line of Brandon Lake hits with “Praise” in the title, “That’s Who I Praise” is a joyful, upbeat song of trust and praise. It came out this summer, and it’s already at the top of Brandon’s Spotify list, outranking Gratitude, Graves into Gardens, and Praise You Anywhere. The product of a collaboration between Benjamin Hastings, Brandon Lake, Micah Nichols, Steven Furtick, and Zac Lawson, “That’s Who I Praise” has a lot to say, so if I can pull myself out of the drum groove for a minute, we’ll check out the lyrics and find out if it’s biblical and if it will worship!

Focus

This song has two major themes. The chorus and bridge describe the character and power of Jesus. The verses invite us into the many ways his people respond to him in praise.

“That’s Who I Praise” uses many biblical titles and names for Jesus as well as some new ones. It identifies Jesus as God, and it’s abundantly clear that’s who we’re praising and singing about.

There’s a lot of “I” in this song. The authors use the phrase “I want” 10 times, and say things like “God’s got my back.” So the individual worshiper is also a focus of this song. Does this make “That’s Who I Praise” a self-centered worship song? That depends on how all those “I”s are used!

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
In the verses, the authors show various responses of praise and trust throughout Scripture and express their wish to respond the same way.

David danced before the ark of the Lord, celebrating God with all his might even though it was undignified (2 Sam 6:14). We want to have that same attitude, praising God without regard for our personal appearance or what others might think.

Paul and Silas sang hymns to God in prison, and then God freed them with an earthquake (Ac 16:25-26). Their song freed them and their fellow prisoners from the physical chains. But the real miracle is what happens next: rather than fleeing the prison, Paul and Silas stay to tell their jailer about Christ. He and his whole family are baptized, free from the chains of sin and death (Ac 16:27-34). We want to have that kind of faith!

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into a fiery furnace as a death sentence for refusing to worship an idol. Rather than burning up, they were unharmed by the flames, and a fourth figure appeared in the furnace walking around with them. People disagree on whether the fourth figure should be identified as an angel or perhaps Christ himself, but it’s clear that God was with them and protected them as they insisted that only the one true God was worthy of worship. When we also refuse to worship idols (literal or metaphorical) but turn our praise to the one true God, we can trust that he will be with us and will protect us.

VERSE 2
Moses and the Israelites crossed through the Red Sea on dry land when God parted the waters to allow them escape from Egypt. This formative event freed them from slavery and established their identity as a people (Ex 14). Like Moses, we want to trust in God and obey his commands even when they don’t make sense, and like the Israelites, we trust him to lead us into his eternal Kingdom.

There are all kinds of things in this life that frighten us, but God is greater than all of them, and nothing in all Creation can separate us from his love (Rom 8:38-39). Furthermore, in Philippians 1:27-30, Paul envisions a church whose unity and faith in the Gospel allows them to face opposition, suffering, and fear, confident that even these things point to their salvation in Christ.

VERSE 3
There are lots of Marys in the Bible, and this song refers to Mary of Bethany. She’s the sister of Lazarus (who Jesus raised from the dead) and Martha (who Jesus encouraged to do less housework.) In John 12, Mary pours a pound of expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet, then dries them with her hair. The parallel account in Mark 14 tells us that the perfume was in an alabaster flask (or vase), and that she broke it open in order to pour it out to the Lord. This ointment and its container were a serious investment, and Mary devotes the whole thing to Jesus. Once the flask is broken, there’s no putting the ointment back inside. We want to be similarly devoted with our hearts, our lives, and our resources.

Daniel (like his friends Rack, Shack, and Benny, mentioned above) ran afoul of a law forbidding him to faithfully worship Yahweh. When he refused to stop praying to God three times a day, he was condemned to spend a night sealed in a den of lions (Daniel 6). The text doesn’t tell us whether he slept or not, but when the king and his officials returned the next morning, Daniel was unharmed. In this part of the song, we’re asking for the peace to trust God and not fear the scheming of men (Pr 29:25).

Shortly after Israel began to enter the Promised Land, the city of Jericho stood in the way. God told Joshua, “See, I have given over Jericho into your hand,” and then gave him instructions that the people should march around the walls for six days, and then on the seventh to march around it seven times and blow the trumpets. They obeyed, and the walls fell. This song applies these words to our spiritual lives. Our praise is the figurative (or literal; I don’t know what your church is like šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø) trumpet blast that brings down any wall that comes between us and our Promised Land. For the Christian, this is not a literal land or physical possession, but our relationship with Christ is our inheritance (Ps 16:5-6). Nothing in this world or the next can separate us from his love, so anything that tries must come tumblin’ down (Rom 8:31-39).

CHORUS
The repeated line “I’m gonna praise” is reminiscent of the Psalmist’s “Bless/praise the Lord, O my soul!” (Ps 103:1, 146:1). In both, we remind our hearts that God is worthy of our worship and we exhort ourselves (and our fellow believers) to worship. Next, the song gives us several reasons God is worthy of our worship.

He moves mountains in response to the faithful prayers of his people (Mt 17:20).

He raised Christ bodily from the dead, freeing us from the chains of death and promising us new life on earth and eternal, resurrected life after we die (1 Cor 15:20, Rom 6:4).

Jesus is seated in the heavenly places with the Father (Col 3:1). This is a place of honor, and a place of ruling over creation.

Even in giving himself up to die, Jesus won the victory over death, defeating the last enemy of God and creation (1 Cor 15:26, 54-56, Col 2:13-15). Because of this stunning act of humility and sacrifice, the name of Jesus is the highest name in all heaven and earth (Ph 2:4-11).

Nothing is impossible with God (Mt 19:26).

BRIDGE
Jesus is the conquering Lion from the tribe of Judah who comes to enact God’s final judgment against sin (Rev 5:5). Then, in the very next verse, when he appears, it is not as a lion but as the holy and slain Lamb (Rev 5:6). He has conquered sin and death by taking their consequences and uncleanness upon himself and making mankind and creation holy through his blood. For this, he is counted worthy (Rev 5:9).

Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, God’s Anointed One, crucified and raised to life (Ac 2:36).

The Ancient of Days is a title for God in the apocalyptic vision found in Daniel 7. In this vision, the Ancient of Days receives the Son of Man (Jesus’ favorite title for himself) and gives him dominion, glory, and a kingdom. At first glance, it is a little odd that we’re singing to Jesus but using a title for God the Father, but John uses this same depiction of the Ancient of Days to describe Christ in Revelation 1. Both have eyes of fire, hair like pure wool, and shining clothes. So I think it’s best to remember Jesus’ statement that “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30) and not stress too much about which Person of the Trinity we’re addressing.

Accessibility

The verses require a great deal of Bible background knowledge to understand. I think someone without much church background would likely understand that we’re expressing a desire to emulate Bible heroes and their faith. They would recognize some images like Moses parting the Red Sea. But this represents a real barrier to understanding. Similarly, the chorus throws a bunch of descriptors out real fast without stopping to explain, so they could easily fly over many people’s heads. At the same time, this song presents a sliding scale of understanding, and it will make more sense the more that someone understands about God’s story. Hearing unfamiliar names and references might encourage people to dig in and learn what stories this song is talking about.

Without understanding the Bible stories referenced in the song, it’s possible to come away with just meaningless positivity. “God’s got my back!” “I’m gonna get that promise!” These statements can lead to complacency and laziness without understanding their context. God told the Israelites to march around Jericho, because he had decreed that it would fall. God protected Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire because they chose to honor his name instead of bowing to a false god. These are not blanket promises that God is going to destroy every “Jericho” I see in my life or that he supports my every decision. God is worthy of our praise and our obedience.

The chorus has a little bit of the same problem, but it’s not as bad since the words are generalized and don’t include “me” and “my.” Just because he is a mountain mover doesn’t mean that the problem I’ve identified as a mountain is going to be dealt with the way I want it to.

This one is pretty rangy. The song stretches an octave plus a sixth, so almost 2 octaves. This isn’t too out of the norm for a worship song, but we should expect that the lows are going to be too low or the highs too high for most congregants. (Or both! šŸ˜¬) There are also several tongue twister moments in this one where most people will struggle to spit all the words out. I can already hear the congregation singing “I’m gonna praise! I’m gonna praise! I’m gonna humanumahumanuma highest of names!”

On the whole, I have to admit that congregational accessibility is a weakness of this song.

Music

“That’s Who I Praise” is super dynamic and energetic. It’s very much a CCM radio-friendly song; the sudden changes in intensity between parts of the song are great for captivating and holding short attention spans. They also make the song really fun to play! If you’re working on this one with a band, I would spend some extra time nailing those down so that everybody is in sync, especially the three hits at the beginning of each chorus (They’re dotted eighths, not triplets!).

Nothing too surprising in the chord progression, but CCLI SongSelect gets a couple of the chords wrong in the chord chart. There should be Cm instead of Eb on the first line of Verse 2 and Verse 3 (Thanks Robby Sams for catching that one!).

As I mentioned above, the melody line covers a wide range and is tricky to sing. So you’ll want to spend some time picking the right key and making sure your vocalist is up to leading this one. Fortunately, the parts for the instruments are simpler, so I think this song would be appropriate for an intermediate-level volunteer band.

Conclusions

Pros: The music is awesome and doable for the average church worship band. The words exalt Jesus for his resurrection and our salvation and hearken back to the praise responses of lots of Bible characters.

Cons: Difficult to learn and sing. Could be a little clearer about what kind of mountains God moves, though the Bible references do clear that up with a little digging. I wish it were a little more “we,” a little less “I.”

Will it worship? I am excited to sing “That’s Who I Praise” this Sunday, but if I’m really honest, I’ve got to call it a “Maybe.” The melody just isn’t very congregation-friendly. It’s a super fun, upbeat celebration of Christ’s power and worth, but it’s going to take several weeks (or a lot of K-Love listening) for the people to be able to sing along.

Image by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

I THANK GOD – Maverick City Music, UPPERROOM, Dante Bowe

/ Jason Henry / 3 Comments

I try to list artists who have covered a song in the title of my review to make it easier for people to find, but with this one, there are so many! “I Thank God,” written by Aaron Moses, Chuck Butler, Dante Bowe, Enrique Holmes, Jesse Cline, and Maryanne J. George, seems to have taken worship world by storm over the last couple of years. It’s a relentlessly joyful anthem of gratitude, and it’s almost impossible not to clap along to.

I think another reason people love “I Thank God” is the way it fosters church unity. On Loop Community’s “Top Selling Songs” page, it is consistently in the top five in the Praise & Worship and Gospel categories. I think the genre blurring and racially unifying character of this song is part of what makes it so special. Black and white congregations celebrate their salvation together every week with this song.

So what is this smash hit about? Why exactly are we thanking God? Why can’t Hell keep track of anybody? And who are you calling a bag of bones? Is “I Thank God” biblical, and will it worship? Keep reading, and we’ll find out!

Focus

This song is all about gratitude toward God for saving us. It tells the story of converting from wandering lost in sin to being found and given new life in Jesus.

This song talks about God in 3rd person, calling Master, Savior, and God. No trinitarian specificity, but Master and Savior are both titles applied to Jesus specifically throughout the New Testament

What are the main themes of the song? Is it God-centered or me-centered? How does it address God?

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
Bad news: the bag of bones is you. Verse 1 describes the condition of the singer before encountering God. They’re wandering, drifting, trying and failing, looking for shelter, lifeless like a skeleton (cf. Ez. 37:1-14, the Valley of Dry Bones). This sounds a little bit like Paul’s description of life apart from Christ in Ephesians 2:1-6. He calls us children of disobedience, following the ways of the world, lost in the passions of the flesh, dead in our trespasses, until God steps in.

PRE-CHORUS 1
In this brief, transitional section, the singer encounters Jesus for the first time. The image of a road calls to mind Saul/Paul’s first meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. The whole direction of his life is changed through this single encounter with the Lord (Ac. 9:1-22).

Jesus tells us that we’re not alone in a few different places, notably in the Great Commission, when he tells his followers, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:19-20), and when he promises that his Spirit will swell in us and with us after he departs to be with the Father (Jn. 14:15-17). I think it’s important that in both of these passages, the presence of God is connected with obedience to Jesus’ commands. So if we want to experience God’s nearness, we ought to follow his instructions and be about his mission.

CHORUS
In this part of the song, we do what the title says and thank God for several things, calling him our Master and Savior. Master and Savior are both titles of Jesus used in the New Testament (Ac. 5:38, Jd. 1:4), and they emphasize that Jesus both offers us grace, salvation, and forgiveness, and that he deserves our trust and obedience. Indeed, calling him Master is itself an expression of surrender to his will. It’s interesting to me that whenever the disciples in the Gospel of Luke call Jesus Master, they’re in the process of totally missing the point of what he’s doing. So perhaps using this title can also remind us that we too miss the picture of what God is doing, and we’re all on a journey of growing closer to him.

The first two lines of the chorus draw on Psalm 40:2 where God lifts David up from the pit and puts his feet on solid rock. They also emphasize the act of repentance and God’s role in it. We are unable to turn ourselves around on our own; we need God’s grace to turn us away from sin and toward him. Repentance requires human action, but it is always a response to God’s saving grace. We also find another connection to obedience here, in the Parable of the Wise and Foolish builders, Jesus says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Do you want to feel solid ground under your feet? Turn to Jesus and do what he says!

Healing hearts isn’t a phrase that the Bible uses often, but it’s certainly something Jesus does (Ps. 147:3, Ps. 34:18). However, healing is regularly connected to the forgiveness of sin throughout the Bible (see these verses). Healing can be physical, mental, or emotional, but it’s always connected to the spirit which needs to be healed from sin. So when this songs talks about healing the heart, I think it’s primarily referring to the healing of sin-sickness in the spirit of the person who turns to Jesus.

Receiving a new name is another feature Saul/Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus (Ac. 9:1-22). When Jesus calls us to repentance and heals us from our sins, he also gives us a new identity that is centered on him and his Kingdom (Rev. 2:17). We are no longer slaves of the world, but sons and daughters of God (Rom. 8:15). We are set free from the chains of sin in order to live in love toward God and others (Gal. 5:1, 13).

VERSE 2
I have some hesitation toward this verse. The singer describes seeing such evidence for Jesus that he has no choice but to believe, and his doubts burn up and evaporate in the wind. He sends burden and bitterness packing, declaring them no longer welcome in his life. None of this is bad exactly, and the authors are certainly describing experiences that many Christians have, but I don’t think these lyrics will speak to everyone in the congregation, and they may be discouraging to some who find themselves struggling with doubt or bitterness. This verse implies that those things shrivel up and vanish immediately when one turns to Christ, when in reality, Christians often struggle with doubt, bitterness, and other burdens throughout their lives. I worry that the blithe, joyful tone of this verse might brush aside the serious concerns and struggles of people in the congregation who need encouragement.

“No choice but to believe” also sounds pretty Calvinist, so if your church doesn’t lean that way, it might be an awkward line to sing.

PRE-CHORUS 2:
I wasn’t sure if streets of gold were actually mentioned in the Bible, but they are! Again, in Revelation, John sees the New Jerusalem, where God and his people will dwell forever, and describes the streets as pure gold (Rv. 21:21). So the singer is promising to continue singing about God’s saving grace until he reaches that eternal city.

The line about the wayward son is a reference to the story of the Prodigal Son, one of the most poignant pictures of God’s love in the Bible (Luke 15:11-32).

BRIDGE
There’s only one line here, and it’s pretty straightforward. In celebrating our salvation, we are celebrating the truth that Jesus has saved us from death, sin, and hell. When we say “hell lost another one,” we are declaring that the forces of evil no longer have any claim on us; we are bound for heaven, not hell.

It’s worth mentioning here that Christian freedom does not mean freedom from all constraints or freedom to do whatever we want. It means being released from bondage to sin so that our hearts are free to love God and do his will, to love others and serve them (Gal. 5:1, 13).

SPONTANEOUS STUFF
The remainder of this song’s lyrics have the character of spontaneous praise and exhortation. I imagine they came to the worship leader on the spot while leading this song, and then became incorporated into its text.

The most repeated statement here is “Get up out of that grave.” This is a straightforward exhortation to the congregation to leave their lives of sin, deadness, and lostness and turn toward Jesus. It echoes Jesus’ command to Lazarus and offers an invitation to join in the abundant, resurrected life of Christ.

The “If he did it for me, he can do it for you,” part is saying that if Jesus can raise me to new life, he can do the same for you. This phrase is a good reminder that we can and should share Christ with our neighbors by sharing the testimonies of how he’s changed our lives.

I have no idea what the line “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” means in this song. It comes from Revelation 19:10, and in its context there, it seems to mean that the heart of any true prophecy is the Gospel, or the testimony of Jesus. This makes sense in Revelation, since John has just received this huge, astounding vision, and he falls down at the feet of an angel to worship it. The angel rebukes him and tells him to worship only God. So it seems to be a statement that prophecy is about the glory of Jesus, no one else. Again, I’m not really sure how that connects to this song. My guess is that the church in which this song was written engages regularly in prophetic utterances, and this line might make more sense in that context where prophecy is frequently discussed and practiced.

Accessibility

I find “I Thank God” pretty easy to understand. It uses clear metaphors to paint a picture of being lost and then finding (or being found by) God. As mentioned above, I do have a concern about verse 2. I think it gives the impression that the Christian life is doubt-free and burden-free, which just isn’t the case (Jn. 16:33, Jd. 1:21-22). I also think you should leave out the spontaneous section at the end; it makes the song go on forever and adds the confusing part about the spirit of prophecy.

The melody of this song is super catchy and relatively easy to learn. The rhythms are repetitive which helps a lot. The range is an octave and a fifth, which is pretty wide, but not unusual for a worship song. So it’s fairly singable but rangy.

Music

“I Thank God” is full of energy! Like I said before, it’s almost impossible not to clap or bounce along to the beat. The fusion of CCM worship and black gospel styles is extremely appealing and unifying for a wide range of worshipers.

For the band, the chords don’t do anything crazy. There are some gospel licks in there, but they’re extra things that individual band members can learn, not obligatory parts of the chord progression. I’m not a drummer, but this one sounds like it would be difficult to play on drums. This song isn’t too difficult for the worship leader as long as it’s transposed into a singable key for him or her.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Maybe.

This song has a lot going for it! The music is great, and the lyrics are joyful, uplifting, Christ-centered, and tell the story of salvation. Unfortunately, verse 2 paints a simplistic picture of leaving behind doubts and struggles rather than continuing to face them with Jesus’ presence and strength. I just keep thinking about how it might make someone facing doubts and obstacles feel like they’re an inferior Christian for not yet being totally freed from those things.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh on verse 2? Should I interpret it differently? Let me know in the comments and share your vote in the poll below.

Image by Courtney Cook on Unsplash

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

I SPEAK JESUS – Charity Gayle, Here Be Lions

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Few songs in recent memory have captured the power of living in Christ like “I Speak Jesus.” It is a declaration of victory, a commitment to persevere, and an anthem of faith in God. The most popular recording of “I Speak Jesus” is of Charity Gayle and Steven Musso, but it was originally released by Here Be Lions in 2019, and the songwriters behind this hit are Abby Benton, Carlene Prince, Dustin Smith, Jesse Reeves, Kristen Dutton, and Raina Pratt.

Something about this song really stirs up the heart toward faith, hope, and action, and as a new parent, the line “Jesus for my family” speaks to me in a way I can’t quite describe. But what does it actually mean to speak the name of Jesus? And what does it do? Is “I Speak Jesus” built on the promises of God’s Word, or empty assumptions? Should you sing it this Sunday? Let’s dig in and find out.

Focus

“I Speak Jesus” is about the power of Jesus’ name to transform our lives and our world. It describes the strengths of his name and situations that will be helped by his name.

This song (obviously) mentions Jesus’ name frequently. The verses seem to be sung to the congregation about Jesus and his name, while the choruses are addressed to Jesus and offer him praise and supplication.

Lyric Analysis

The meaning of this song hinges on one ambiguous phrase: “I speak Jesus.” What do we actually mean when we sing these words? I think these words can have several beneficial, healthy, scriptural meanings, and one unhealthy, dangerous meaning.

A REMINDER
Sometimes we speak Jesus’ name as a reminder to ourselves and others that he is with us. The lyrics of verse 1 talk about speaking his name over “every heart and every mind” because of the peace found in his presence (John 14:27). It is easy to forget that God himself is with us. It is easy to forget the hope that we have in Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is easy to seek temporary pleasure and security rather than his eternal Kingdom. Sometimes we just need to be reminded!

A WEAPON
Next, we see the name of Jesus as a weapon to fight spiritual battles. The songwriters portray his name as a breaker of addictions, chains, and strongholds. Paul talks about wielding spiritual weapons in this way in 2 Corinthians 10:3-8. The strongholds he mentions are arguments against God, thoughts that don’t honor Christ, and disobedience to Jesus. He fights these battles within his congregations in the authority Christ has given him, or in the name of Jesus. He also rebukes and casts out a demon in the name of Jesus Christ in Acts 16:18.

So we don’t just remind ourselves who Jesus is when we invoke his name, we also remind the powers of darkness that try to enslave and destroy us that Christ has already defeated them, and they must bow before his authority. It’s important to note that using Jesus’ name does not guarantee immediate victory in every spiritual battle. Paul himself struggled with a “thorn in his flesh” that God would not remove despite Paul’s pleading (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Sometimes, God wants to take the attacks of Satan and use them for good rather than prevent them, and we never see the full picture of the spiritual battles we face.

A PRAYER
Sometimes, when we talk about speaking Jesus’ name, we might just mean that we’re praying to him. That is absolutely an appropriate way to face every situation named in this song. The Bible instructs us to bring our requestsā€”especially those that cause us anxietyā€”to God in prayer (Phil. 4:6). Furthermore, James tells us that praying for one another is powerful and may bring healing (James 5:16).

We often close our prayers with the phrase, “in Jesus’ name, amen.” I suspect this habit reduces Jesus’ name to a stamp that we affix to the end of our prayers, preventing us from considering what it really means to pray or act in Jesus’ name. When I look at the various uses of “in my name” in the New Testament, I don’t get the impression that Jesus means we should simply slap his name onto the end of each prayer, and that that will make God answer it, as is sometimes misunderstood from passages like John 16:23. Rather, doing something in someone’s name means doing it on their behalf, in their authority, as instructed and permitted by that person. I think praying in Jesus’ name means joining the Son of God in the prayers he is already praying to the Father, echoing his promises, obeying his commands, being about his business, making his name known. Those are the kinds of requests God always grants.

A DECLARATION
In the previous section, I mentioned that part of praying and acting in Jesus’ name is making his name known. That’s part of what this song means too. When we speak Jesus’ name into all kinds of situations, we give God glory by trusting in him and thanking him for what he has already done. I think this is what the chorus means when it asks him to burn like a fire. We want his glory to shine forth from our lives and every circumstance.

We also declare our intent when we speak Jesus’ name over something or someone. For instance, when I speak Jesus over my family, I am declaring that I will bring his love, holiness, and influence into our home. If I declare Jesus over a sin struggle, I am surrendering it and expressing my intent to obey him rather than my deceitful desires (Eph. 4:21-23).

AN INVITATION
“I Speak Jesus” also has an evangelistic component. In exhorting one another to “shout Jesus from the mountains, Jesus in the streets,” we are encouraging the spread of the Gospel. We want to proclaim the good news of Christ’s death, resurrection, and coming Kingdom so loudly that everyone can hear it.

A MAGIC WORD
What the name of Jesus is not is a magic word. Physically speaking Jesus’ name is not a charm against misfortune or a guarantee that God will answer our prayers the way we want him to. Our temptations to sin, our addictions, our mental health struggles, and our life circumstances do not vanish when we speak the word “Jesus.” We do well to approach Jesus’ name humbly, bringing our requests to him with thanksgiving rather than insisting on our way or demanding things “in his name.”

My primary concern with this song is that there is a large segment of the Church that teaches that through a word of faith, believers can immediately claim their “right” to prosperity, healing, power, and victory. Since this song doesn’t explain what it means to speak the name of Jesus, it lends itself to this erroneous and harmful belief.

Accessibility

“I Speak Jesus” is eminently singable and congregational, especially the chorus. It’s easy to learn, and I find that congregations latch onto it almost immediately.

The words of this song are accessible but easily misapplied. This song focuses an awful lot on Jesus’ name, ascribing various characteristics to his name rather than himself. I don’t think this is necessarily an error, since a name is a representation of the thing itself, not a separate entity, but I do worry that it builds up the name of Jesus as a magic word that guarantees our success and answered prayers.

Music

The simple, almost plaintive first verses are a quiet expression of our need and God’s power. The instrumentation stays very sparse and the vocals are very restrained through the first chorus. Only in verse three do the kick and toms come in to accompany the crescendoing vocals. By chorus two, we hit our stride. We drop back down for the emotional intensity of the bridge which builds dramatically with driving snare and guitars to lead into another big chorus. The recording makes excellent use of antiphony here between the leader and the Gospel choir, but if your church doesn’t normally lead worship in that style, I wouldn’t try to add it for just this song. The song ends quietly on a note of peace and trust.

…or you can fake the congregation out and then build back up for another few bridges! šŸ˜‚

The rhythms of this song are pretty straightforward, and there aren’t any super crazy chords (unless you do the second ending, in which you’ll need to watch out for some jazzy Gospel additions to the progression). The timing of the chord changes is a little tricky on the choruses, so it’s probably worth taking a minute to get the band on the same page about them.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Maybe.

This is a powerful and deeply moving song. It exalts the power of Jesus and declares his name into all kinds of circumstances. We can and should speak the name of Jesus often and in many different ways! I just hope that we’re teaching our congregations to speak his name reverently in prayer, declaration, and invitation rather than presumptuously as a magic word of faith.

Image by Thomas SchĆ¼tze from Unsplash

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

KIND – Cory Asbury

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment


I’ve been a Cory Asbury fan since his IHOP days. “So Good to Me” and “Where I Belong” were impactful songs for me during my high school days, “Reckless Love” is a classic, and “The Father’s House” is one of my recent worship faves (I should really write blogs about both of those. Everybody loves to argue about whether God’s love is reckless or not! šŸ¤“). But “Kind” isn’t just a Cory song; it also benefits from the writing talents of Jesse Reeves, Paul Mabury, and Steve Fee.

I stumbled upon “Kind” when my wife sent it to me on TikTok in February this year. Since then, it’s been published on his most recent album Pioneer. A far cry from the goofball antics that often populate Cory’s social media, “Kind” is a heartbreaking testimony of trying to find God’s goodness in the midst of sin and pain. In this blog, I’m not just trying to discern whether a song is true or good but whether it will be beneficial in most corporate worship services. So, is “Kind” biblical? And is it appropriate for Sunday worship? Let’s find out!

Focus

This song is about our doubt, sin, and pain, and God’s response of kindness toward us, specifically in the cross of Christ.

“Kind” spends a lot of words talking about “me.” It takes a first-person perspective to intimately reflect on our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But I don’t think that makes it a self-centered song. The simple phrase “all He’s ever been is kind” stands in sharp contrast to the many words of our striving, failing, and questioning. God’s kindness is magnified by our desperate need for it.

This song mostly refers to God as “He,” assuming that we will know who it’s referring to. In case we don’t, Jesus is identified by name in the chorus.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
The first verse addresses some of the most painful circumstances we experience in this life: divorce, loss of a child, addiction, and praying for healing without receiving it. Rather than making truth claims, this verse expresses personal experience. The singer admits to having doubts about God’s existence and his character, wondering how he decides who should receive healing.

I have mixed feelings about expressing this kind of doubt in worship. On the one hand, everyone experiences doubts on their faith journey. Many people in the Bible also express pain and doubt, including Lazarus’ sisters, David, the psalmists, the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, and Job. While each worshiper may not have suffered the same experiences as the songwriters of “Kind,” this verse casts a wide net for the kinds of things in life that lead us to doubt God. Acknowledging these doubts together in worship reminds us that we’re not alone, and that our doubts don’t make us “bad” Christians or condemn us to hell.

A friend and colleague asked me recently about worship songs for people struggling with their mental health. I found that almost all the songs we sing are positive and celebratory. Even those that acknowledge our pain and sin end on a note of victory. In a sense, that is appropriate, since we believe that the victory of Jesus is the ultimate destiny of creation. But in the here and now, ending every song on a happy note sometimes negates the pain and doubt people are still experiencing.

On the other hand, these kind of doubts certainly don’t praise God, so it just feels weird to sing them in church. Is that a real problem or just my discomfort with difficult emotions? I’m not sure. I do know that praise isn’t the only kind of worship. Trusting God with our doubts, fears, and pain honors him too.

VERSE 2
Where the first verse was focused on suffering and bad circumstances, this verse stressed regret for the wrong things we have done. The singer admits to burning bridges with people, abandoning relationships and situations after making a mess of them. This verse acknowledges that God forgives us for these things, but that we often find it difficult to forgive ourselves for our sins. We sometimes feel that we are somehow worse than everyone else, too broken for God to love. Again, these particular experiences and feelings might not be universal, but they are representative.

CHORUS
The chorus describes more personal experiences, mostly paired as opposites. Sometimes the author has fled from God, and sometimes he has hurt people in his zealotry. He’s been patient and insistent in turns. He’s even gone so far as to “curse His name in anger,” the most provocative line in the song.

Cursing God is mentioned a few times in Scripture, most notably in Job. The title character of this book experiences the loss of his livestock, his health, and even his children. Far from encouraging him, his wife tells him to quiet being so righteous and just “curse God and die.” Job refuses, and the text tells us that to do so would have been sin, but the rest of the book shows us his struggle with his faith (Job 2:9-10). The reward for sin is death, but forgiveness and eternal life can be found in Jesus (Rom. 3:23), and he tells us that even blasphemy will be forgiven (Matt. 12:32). So cursing God is not recommended by this song, and it is not something that all Christians have done per se, but we have all sinned, and we have all dishonored God sometimes in response to our pain and circumstances.

The chorus also contains the primary truth claim of this song: “all He’s ever been is kind.” But is God only ever kind? Paul seems to push back on this in Romans 11:11-24. In verse 22, he says, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.” So those who cut themselves off from God experience his severity, and those who remain in him experience his kindness. But in the very next verse, we learn that even God’s punishment is intended to bring people back into his family: “even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.” There is kindness even in the severity of God.

So the chorus gives us opportunity to acknowledge the ways we have sinned against God, and it tells us that he responds to all of our failings with kindness. At the end of the song we replace the line about cursing God with the admission, “He knows I don’t deserve it, but He’s never changed His mind.” This echoes Paul’s words in Romans 5:8, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Even in the midst of our rebellion and failures, God maintains faithful lovingkindness towards us.

BRIDGE
God’s kindness is not squishy or passive. He does not ignore our sin, but instead bears it himself on the cross. God’s kindness is at the expense of his own Son, also God himself, dying a criminal’s torturous death. This stark image shows us that God’s kindness is not cheap, not will it be mocked or taken advantage of. It is a serious kindness, bent on our redemption at any cost.

Accessibility

The meaning of this song is clear to anyone: God is kind even when we doubt and even in the midst of our pain. There is some risk of misapprehending the line “all He’s ever been is kind,” as an endorsement of cheap grace or a vision of God lacking justice, wrath, or discipline. The bridge does much to counteract this concern. I think a lot of people will be uncomfortable singing, “I’ve cursed His name in anger.”

The range of this song is an octave and a second, which is actually pretty small for contemporary worship. I don’t find the verses especially easy for a congregation to pick up immediately, but the chorus is catchy and 3 times is likely enough to pick it up.

Music

Like the rest of the Pioneer, “Kind” has a country flavor. It relies on acoustic finger-picking, some light snare work (probably with brushes), and simple piano chords for the rhythmic backbone. Steel guitar, bass, and “ooh” vocals fill out the soundscape. The simple, subdued instrumentation is this song’s strength, and church bands who play it should exercise lots of restraint. This is definitely one of those “fragile egg” songs that will break if you aren’t gentle with it.

The chords themselves are simple, but there are a lot of them, so it’s probably worth a couple minutes to make sure everybody in the band is playing them at the same times. Other than that, the song isn’t rhythmically challenging. The lead vocal has some tricky timing.

Conclusions

“Kind” is a powerful song that reflects seriously on the pain and doubt that are part of the human experience. Rather than explaining or minimizing them, it simply places God’s kindness in their midst and reminds us that Jesus suffered too.

I thought this song was going to be a “no.” I thought the blunt and sometimes harsh descriptions of our doubts and pains were too uncomfortable and personal for a worship service. But if the author of Psalm 88 can say express his feelings of loss and abandonment and doubt before God, then maybe we should too. This song honors the suffering and doubt that all Christians experience in a way that few other songs do, and it presents God’s kindness in a clear and unique way. So then I wanted to say “yes!”

But I can’t get past the feeling that this song isn’t very congregational. I also still feel weird that roughly 1/3 of this song’s 26 lines are about God and his character while 2/3 are about our problems. This song could function very meaningfully in a worship service, but (like many testimony songs) it might be better suited to special music than congregational singing. Not everyone can fully identify with all the problems listed in this song, and many people will have a problem confessing to cursing God’s name in anger when that’s something they don’t believe they’ve done.

So after all that, I think we land in “maybe” territory with this one. “Kind” is a beautiful, valuable, insightful song that will continue to minister to many people in the depths of fear, doubt, and pain. It respects those trials by refusing to give them a trite answer, and it glorifies Jesus by declaring his kindness into the midst of them. But I don’t think Sunday-morning congregational singing is the best vehicle for this song to do its work.

Image by Francisco Gonzalez from Unsplash

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

LION – Elevation Worship, Chris Brown, Brandon Lake

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

“Lion,” the title track of Elevation Worship’s 2022 album, is a joint effort by well-known songwriters Chris Brown and Brandon Lake and pastor/author Steven Furtick. It evokes mystery, majesty, and power with its words and instrumentation, and it has captured the attention of Christian listeners, accumulating over 22 million streams on Spotify.

I have to confess some skepticism toward “Lion.” My initial impression was that somebody had strung together a bunch of random words and titles from the Bible to create a strong, manly worship song. As I’ve examined the words, I’ve come to see the unity of this song’s themes and the skillful way that the authors use music to paint the lyrics with emotional weight and meaning.

My dad likes to joke about “7-Eleven songs,” which are worship songs with 7 words that you repeat 11 times. This song comes pretty close to meeting that definition; the chorus has nine words, and we sing them ten times. Repetition can be great if the words we’re repeating speak the truth of Scripture, so let’s look at what these lyrics say!

Focus

The main theme of this song is the power and glory of Jesus, especially in the sound of his voice. The song portrays him as a roaring lion, unmatched and victorious. The music and words work together create a secondary theme of the mysterious nature of God.

This song may not address Jesus by name, per se, but it does call him by a lot of very specific titles that can refer to no one else, including the main one: Lion of Judah.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
We begin by listing several names and attributes of God that evoke his power and authority. The God of Jacob is one who wrestles and gives us new names (Gen. 32:22-32). The Great I Am stands alone, uncreated, strong enough to bring his people out of Egypt (Ex. 3:14-15). “King of Angels” is self-explanatory. “Son of Man” is what Jesus often called himself (Matt. 9:6), and it’s a reference to a prophesied figure from the book of Daniel who appears riding on storm clouds to receive a kingdom along with eternal glory and dominion (Dan. 7:13-14).

The second half of this verse focuses on the power inherent to Jesus’ voice. The description of his voice being like “many waters” comes from Revelation 1:14-16. I take it to be a poetic way of saying that something is really loud and awesome like a thunderous waterfall, and the sounds of multitudes are often described this way in Scripture. Jesus is certainly the focus of the song around the throne in heaven in Revelation 5:9-14, a passage we’ll revisit throughout this song. God sometimes speaks in thunder throughout the Bible, and it is often representative of his power and victory over his enemies (2 Sam. 22:13-15, Job 40:9, Ex. 19:19).

The last line introduces the chorus by asking God to make his glory known.

CHORUS
“Hail, hail Lion of Judah // Let the Lion roar”

Now we arrive at the central image of the song: a conquering Lion who is also a Lamb. This idea is also represented in the album art: an image of a lamb on a record called LION. This picture is found in Revelation 5, a chapter that we’ve referenced already.

“And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’ And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.”

Revelation 5:5-6

The lion represents Jesus’ identity as a victorious warrior. The phrase “of Judah” refers to his ancestry as a descendent of David and connects him to prophecies throughout the Old Testament like Genesis 49:10, which says “the scepter shall not depart from Judah.”

What does it mean to ask the Lion to roar? This question really puzzled me at first, but I think the last line of verse 1 gives an answer: we’re asking him to make his glory known. A roar is a display of power. It imparts courage to allies and makes enemies flee. When we roar with the Lion of Judah, we join with Jesus in declaring his victoryā€”past, present, and futureā€”over sin and death.

VERSE 2
I’m not sure where “Pride of Zion” comes from. Zion is a poetic name for the city of God, or Jerusalem. The pride of a city is the person or thing from that city that is most famous or honored, so it makes sense to call Jesus this name. It’s also a clever choice since a pride is a group of lions. The Bible usually give the word “pride” a negative connotation, so I might have chosen a different word here, but it’s not wrong.

The next couple lines declare that Jesus is the Messiah foretold by the Old Testament prophets (1 Peter:10-12). They also make the point that he came into our world as a real, flesh-and-blood human, not merely a spirit (John 20:26-28).

We return to Revelation 5 to look at the image of only Jesus being worthy to open the scroll. This scroll represents God’s final answer to all the evil in the world. John weeps because no one is able to open this scroll, but the the Lion/Lamb Jesus appears and he is worthy to open it, setting in motion the events of the end of the age, the end of sin and death, and the consummation of the Kingdom of God.

The end of the verse contains the clearest statement of of Jesus’ Lion/Lamb identity in this song. It also succinctly explains the two animals; the Lion is the mighty victor, the Lamb suffered for us. I dislike that it places the two identities consecutively, as if Jesus was a Lamb but became a Lion at his resurrection, when in fact he was both the entire time. God presents himself as presented as a lion sometimes in the Old Testament (Hosea 5:14), and when Jesus appears in Revelation 5, it’s actually in the form of a slain lamb (Rev. 5:6). The one does not replace the other.

One more thing: call me a grammar snob if you need to, but the last line should be “the Lion has arisen,” not “the Lion has arose.” I get that it doesn’t fit the meter, and prosody is important, but grammar is important too! šŸ˜†

BRIDGE
I love how half of the singers are saying “prepare the way of the Lord” while the other half sing “O valley be raised up, O mountain be made low.” I haven’t heard a polyphonic worship song this good since Marc Imboden’s “You Are Holy!” This tool works especially well here because the lyrics explain each other to some extent.

The leveling of the mountains and valleys is for the purpose of making a flat road for the coming of the Lord in his glory. These words come directly from Isaiah 40:3-5, and they’re quoted in all four Gospels to describe John the Baptist’s work in preparing Israel for Jesus’ ministry (John 1:23). John the Baptist introduces Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” (John 1:29), so his ministry is also the link between the bridge and the rest of the song and Christ’s Lion/Lamb identity.

I haven’t been able to figure out if this is part of Isaiah’s meaning, but I can’t sing about mountains being made low and valleys being lifted up without thinking about God’s love for those who are humble and his anger towards those who are arrogant. I think this bridge is at least in part a plea for justice, for God to exalt those who are lowly and to bring down the proud (James 1:9-10, 1 Peter 5:5).

Accessibility

This song’s meaning is cloaked in deep scriptural allusions. Without doing some serious research, most people will not understand the majority of the lyrics or how they connect to one another. The average worshiper will come away with a vague sense of having been impressed by God’s mystery and power, but I am concerned that not enough of that feeling will be from a real understanding of who God is. When we pray and sing to God, we should do so with our minds, not just our spirits (1 Cor. 14:15).

The extensive repetition in this song makes its melody and lyrics easy to learn. It’s a bit rangy, but only because the chorus jumps up an octave. Basses can just keep singing in the lower register. The “roar” parts also make excellent use of antiphony, so the congregation can jump in easily by repeating after the leader.

Music

This song has the drama! Mysterious synth drones. Minor tonality. Rumbly bass and drums. Powerful chorus. Sick-nasty guitar licks. Abrupt dynamic changes. The outcry on “roaaaaar!” The almost eerie, chant-like “prepare the way” bridge gives me chills. As mentioned above, I love the use of polyphony here.

The chord progression is also really cool. The song goes back and forth between melodic minor and harmonic minor, so the IV chord goes back and forth between major and minor, creating a really cool effect.

I think this one is going to be really challenging for the band to play. Part of that is the timing and the unusual chord progression, but most of the challenge comes from the fact that to make this song work, you really have to nail the dynamics. If you don’t layer in correctly and create some of those cool effects, this song loses the musical texture of mystery and power that underlines the words.

Depending on how many singers are leading worship, you can decide how much of the crazy multi-part vocal stuff to add at the end of the song.

Conclusions

I came into this review expecting to give “Lion” a firm no. Now I’m on the fence between yes and maybe. This is one of the most epic worship songs I’ve heard in a long time. It masterfully expresses the power of Jesus’ voice and the majesty and mystery of his identity as the Lion of Judah and the Lamb Who Was Slain. It’s also very deep, a little hard to figure out, and challenging to play.

Will it worship? Maybe. I feel the same about this song as I do about Honey in the Rock. I love it now, even though I didn’t when I first heard it, and I would sing my heart out in a worship service that included “Lion.” But I can’t discount the high barrier to entry represented by the rapid-fire Bible deep cuts and the difficulty of playing this song well.

Image by Glen Carrie from Unsplash

Scripture quotations are from theĀ ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

WHAT I SEE – Elevation Worship, Chris Brown

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Image by Niels Smeets from Unsplash

“What I See” is an intense, energetic new song from Elevation Worship’s LION album. Written by Chris Brown, Jason Ingram, Pat Barrett, and Steven Furtick, “What I See” stirs up excitement and calls the church to awaken from slumber and live the resurrected life. I have to confess that my first impression of this song was that it was a lot of hype and lot a whole lot of substance, but the central line of the chorus, “He is risen // We are risen with Him,” is so strong that it has me reevaluating. If there’s a subject worthy of hype, it’s the resurrection of Jesus, so let’s dig into the lyrics and see if “What I See” is biblical, and if it’s suitable for congregational worship.

Let me know in the comments if you see what I see in “What I See.” šŸ˜†šŸ¤¦ā€ā™‚ļø

Focus

This song is about resurrection. It points to Jesus’ resurrection (though he isn’t identified by name) but spends more time on the imminent resurrections of believers as they turn to him, quite possibly through baptism. There’s also an emphasis on experiential witness of God’s power. Lines like “do you see what I see?” and “I see lightning; I hear thunder,” insist that God is working powerfully here and now, and that we can see and experience it.

Lyric Analysis

INTRO
“Do you see what I see?”

I’m not sure yet, Chris. That’s what we’re trying to determine!

This line is a rhetorical question that introduces one of the song’s driving ideas. Its meaning isn’t clear at the outset, but as we develop the theme we’ll see that this is an invitation to see the power of God at work, especially through the resurrections of believers, but also through signs and wonders.

VERSE 1
Lightning and thunder are commonly used throughout Scripture to represent God’s power, often in battle or judgment, but sometimes just as an effect of his presence or his words. It also might be worth noting that at Jesus’ resurrection, there was a great earthquake (those can sound thunderous) and the angel who rolls the stone away and then sits on it is described as having an appearance like lightning (Matt 28:1-3). So the authors of this song could be obliquely referencing Jesus’ resurrection here.

“Six feet under” is a modern euphemism for dead, since that’s how deep we tend to bury people. Jesus was not buried in a coffin but in a Jewish tomb, so this line points to the song primarily discussing imminent resurrections/conversions rather than Jesus’ resurrection. He makes this clear by saying dead things are “coming back to life again” and “there’s about to be another resurrection.” We’ll discuss this idea more in the chorus.

The phrase “signs and wonders” appears throughout the Old and New Testaments. It describes the plagues God inflicted on Egypt, God’s deliverance of Daniel, the miracles of Jesus, and miracles performed through the Apostles and early Christians in Acts. But there are also some warnings attached to this phrase. Jesus rebukes those who go seeking signs and wonders in Matthew 12:38-41 and tells them the only sign they will receive is his death and resurrection. He also warns that false christs and false prophets will lead people astray with signs and wonders (Matt. 24:23-25). So, bearing witness to the signs and wonders of God is a good thing, especially in bearing witness to the primary wonder: Jesus’ resurrection. But we must be careful not to seek after them or be led astray by those who perform them but whose teachings do not align with Scripture.

Seeing “bursts of living color” is a metaphor for experiencing a vibrant, resurrected life. The authors may have had the vivid colors of the New Jerusalem, the home of God’s people after our final resurrection, in mind when they wrote this line (Rev. 21:10-14).

CHORUS
“Come alive // Wake up sleeper // He is risen // We are risen with Him”

The chorus is my favorite part of this song because it situates our hope for resurrection in the fact that Jesus has already risen. In Romans 6:2-4, Paul tells us that when we are baptized into Jesus, we are joining him in his death, and we are resurrected with his resurrection.

The call to the sleeper to wake up is found in Ephesians 5:14 (paraphrasing various Old Testament passages), where Paul is talking about what it means to walk in the light as opposed to the darkness, the new, resurrected life as opposed to the old dead one. As a consequence of our resurrection with Christ, we are called to wake up and live a new kind of life. This is the same thing point he’s making in Romans 6 as well.

Our resurrection with Jesus is one of those “now/not yet” concepts from the Bible, where in one sense we are already resurrected and we are called to live new lives of faith and love. In another sense, we still wait for the day when Jesus fully establishes his Kingdom and we are resurrected, transformed, and enter eternity with him (Phil. 3).

When we return to the chorus later in the song, we get one additional phrase: “paradise flung wide open.” I don’t find this exact statement anywhere in Scripture, but I think it fits with the idea of Jesus tearing the veil that separates us from God’s presence (Matt. 27:51). It also reminds me of passages like Romans 9:24, which emphasize that God’s family is now open to people of all nations, not just the people of Israel.

VERSE 2

Jesus said “it is finished” when he died on the cross (John 19:30), and Christians have long understood this as a declaration that the work of redemption is complete in him. Jesus has already done it; we don’t have to earn it (Eph. 2:8-9). The grave with no body in it (two words “no body,” not “nobody”) refers to Jesus’ empty tomb (John 20:1-10).

INTERLUDE

Chris invites the congregation to “hear the resurrection life in the room today.” The singing of God’s people is part of what happens when we’re filled with the Spirit, which is directly tied to experiencing the resurrected life (Eph. 5:18-19, Eph. 1:13-14).

BRIDGE

The bridge gives us a conditional statement: “If you see that [Jesus’] grave is empty, then you know that anything is possible.” Jesus himself tells us that all things are possible with God (Matt. 19:26). The rest of the bridge repeats words we’ve seen already, focusing on seeing and hearing signs, wonders, lightning, and thunder.

Nothing wrong here, we just need to remember that signs are just that: signs. They’re not the main point of our faith; they point to Jesus.

Accessibility

I think most people will understand that we are talking about how Jesus’ resurrection and how it makes it possible for us to be resurrected with him. The song doesn’t explain exactly what that means but paints the new, resurrected life with metaphors like lightning, living color, and waking from sleep. So someone untrained in Scripture is likely to come away from this song with an understanding of what the new life feels like, but not necessarily what it entails.

“What I See” also tells us anything is possible and creates an expectation for signs and wonders, which could be harmful depending on one’s understanding of the phrase, and whether it prompts people to seek contemporary signs and wonders or place too much trust in them (See analysis of verse 1).

The tune of this song is simple and the rhythms are repetitive so it should be very singable for the congregation.

Music

This song excels at building excitement through strategic application of drums and electric guitar. As such, dynamics are even more important than usual. “What I See” is never quiet, but there are several places where the instrumentation is sparse on purpose, featuring only the electric guitar, drums, or voices and clapping.

I’m not a drummer, but some of the drum rhythms in this song sound pretty difficult, and they’re integral to the energy of the song so they can’t just be skipped or replaced. The guitar rhythm patterns don’t sound as challenging, but they are very specific, and it will be important for the musicians on your team to mirror what Elevation plays as closely as possible. The chords are easy.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Maybe.

I don’t see much theological danger in “What I See,” except maybe an unhelpful emphasis on contemporary signs and wonders which is less of a concern if your church has an established and well-understood position on what those do and don’t entail. In fact, the central premise of the song, “He is risen; we are risen with him,” is a clear articulation of one of the very most important points of Christian faith. The rest of the song is focused on the feeling of excitement that naturally accompanies that kind of truth.

What makes this song hard to utilize in corporate worship is its very concrete and oft-repeated expectation that “there’s about to be another resurrection.” If you sing this song in worship, and it’s not followed by a baptism or some other visible sign of someone’s conversion to faith in Jesus, it will ultimately feel flat. It is absolutely right and good to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and ours, but to sing a song so focused on seeing someone’s imminent salvation and then not connect that promise to a fulfillment seems wrong. So I would have a hard time using this song in a worship service if it wasn’t going to be followed up with a baptism, someone’s confession of faith, or maybe even a very focused evangelism effort.

To sum up! I’m a little concerned about the emphasis on signs and wonders, and it would be a minor wonder for an average church drummer to be able to play this song well. Apart from that, this is an exciting, celebratory song about the resurrection of believers that could be used effectively as part of a baptism service or revival, but probably not a typical Sunday morning.

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

GRATITUDE – Brandon Lake

/ Jason Henry / 2 Comments

Image by Ilnur Kalimullin from Unsplash

This song comes highly requested by members of my team, and I see why! Brandon Lake, Dante Bowe, and Benjamin Hastings have crafted a beautiful expression of humble, grateful worship. “Gratitude” is simple, honest, and moving, but is it biblical, and will it worship?

Focus

The theme of this song is worshiping God (usually “you,” occasionally “king” or Lord”). The words paint a picture of a humble, worshipful spirit that longs to honor God and express the thanks he deserves, but lacks adequate words and must offer a simple “hallelujah” instead.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
The singer explains the insufficiency of his own words in expressing his gratitude. It’s not clear yet who he’s singing to (though in a church context most reasonable people would assume it’s to God, and that will be made clearer later) or what he’s grateful for. I suspect the cause of his gratitude is left open-ended on purpose so that each worshiper can fill in the song with his or her own reasons to be grateful.

VERSE 2

Lake expresses again the inadequacy of singing, in particular because every song ends. He contrasts this with God, who is eternal (Isa. 40:28, Heb. 13:8, Rev. 22:13, and many other places). I’m not aware of anywhere in Scripture that discusses the inadequacy of song specifically, though David calls God indescribable (Ps. 145:3), and Paul says that God’s gift is inexpressible (2 Cor. 9:15) implying that our words will always fall short of fully explaining God, his character, or his grace toward us. It’s also clear from the Bible that song alone does not constitute worship. John 4:24 says, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” It seems to me that “Gratitude” is very focused on expressing this worshipful spirit.

CHORUS
“I know it’s not much // But I’ve nothing else fit for a king // Except for a heart singing hallelujah”

The raising of hands is all over the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. It’s most often an expression of supplication (Ps. 28:1) or blessing (Ps. 134:2). The raising of hands in worship is commanded throughout the Psalms and engages our whole bodies in worship rather than just our mouths. Sam Storms has written an excellent article on the lifting of hands in worship if you’d like to learn a little more.

The Hebrew word hallelujah is literally a command to praise the Lord. Hallel means to praise and jah is an abbreviation for the divine name Yahweh. Over time, it came to be an expression of praise in itself, rather than an exhortation to praise. So the singer is saying that the only appropriate expression of his gratitude is praise. He can’t come up with adequate words, so he just says “praise God” over and over (in Hebrew).

VERSE 3

The “just one move” here is not the raising of arms, but the act of worship. That’s the only response the singer can conceive of to…whatever he’s responding to. It’s fairly clear that he’s responding to God, but it’s not apparent if he’s responding to an aspect of God’s character, the Gospel, or a particular blessing in his own life. Like the gratitude in verse 1, it’s probably intended to be open-ended.

BRIDGE

Singing to one’s own soul is something the Psalmists do regularly, especially to stir oneself up to praise God. I think this bridge is a poetic reinterpretation of Psalm 42:11, which says, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”

I don’t love the line “you’ve got a lion inside of those lungs.” It feels self-aggrandizing, which I know isn’t the author’s intent, since the words throughout the rest of the song are so self-effacing. It just feels out-of-place to me. My soul’s strength to praise the Lord doesn’t come from my own inner lion, but from God’s Spirit.

Accessibility

Some songs expect the worshiper to do a fair bit of work in order to engage meaningfully with the lyrics. Often, this means one needs a good working knowledge of some relevant Scriptures. In the case of “Gratitude,” the worshiper needs to bring his or her own reasons for thanksgiving and awe. Without a real cause for gratitude, this song doesn’t mean much.

I think the lion in the bridge is confusing, but not dangerous. (As opposed to a lion on a bridge, which would be dangerous and confusing.)

Music

This song starts with finger picking on an acoustic guitar and the humble, quiet words of the singer (mostly mixed voice and falsetto here). Some subtle cello comes in to accompany the chorus, and we get some warm pads on verse 2. The piano comes in on the second chorus with sparse chords and the playing of the strings increases. The singer also increases in volume here, but is still holding back. We don’t get Brandon’s full voice until the second repetition of the bridge, where he is exhorting his own soul to give its full-voiced praise to the Lord. This is a powerful musical turning point, and the song reaches its crescendo in some wordless vocalizing and repetitions of “praise the Lord.” We come back down for a very intimate final chorus. The instrumentation fits perfectly and Lake’s masterful vocal performance paints every word with humility, gratitude, longing, and love.

The key to doing this song well is restraint. Each instrument must be held back until just the right moment, since compromising the song’s tender emotional arc could easily make the whole thing fall flat.

I’m not convinced that this song is very singable for a congregation. The melody has a range of an octave plus a sixth, and transposing it down leeches some of the energy from the vocals. I also don’t love that the song hits its musical peak on an instrumental break where the congregation doesn’t even sing.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Maybe.

This song is a soul-stirring expression of gratitude, but I wish it anchored that feeling to some concrete reasons. It is clearly directed to God, it’s just not clear why. I was recently hard on “Rest On Us,” another Brandon Lake song, for similar reasons, but “Gratitude” gets a maybe instead of a no because it’s a whole lot easier for the average congregant to come up with reasons for gratitude than it is to come up with a solid theology of the Holy Spirit. If we do sing this song for church, I will probably precede it with a few moments of introspection for the congregation to find reasons to give thanks, or maybe even have them share with their neighbor. Better yet, I might give a brief explanation of the Gospel so that we can focus all our gratitude on that one, indescribable gift of grace.

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT CLEAR – Edmund H. Sears

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Image by Joe Ciciarelli from Unsplash

Since it’s Christmas this week, we had our weekly rehearsal on Monday night instead of Thursday, so the words of this song have been bouncing around in my head since then. And boy are there a lot of them! “It Came Upon the (or “a”) Midnight Clear” is over 170 years old, and the poetry is pretty opaque. It . It’s easy to let classic hymn texts, and especially Christmas carols, fly under the radar unexamined, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t 100% sure what this one was saying, so I wanted to figure it out! There are also a bunch of different versions and covers of this carol, so instead of reviewing one of them, I’m just going to focus on unpacking the lyrics and let you pick whichever version suits you best. (…though we’re singing the MercyMe version this week and it’s a banger!)

Focus

The theme of this song is the “song” of the angels who announced Jesus’ birth: “peace on earth, goodwill to men.” It traces this song of peace from his birth through our present age, to the future new creation.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
Here, the author sets the scene from Luke 2, when the angel announces Jesus’ birth to the shepherds. The only details we have from Scripture regarding the setting is that it was night and they were in a field. So the author is taking some poetic license in adding details like that it was midnight, or that the skies were clear, or that the angels were carrying golden harps (angels are never portrayed with harps in Scripture, though the elders in Revelation 5:8 carry them, so heavenly harpists are not entirely alien to the Bible). We also have no reason to believe that the world was literally waiting in solemn stillness to hear the angels’ message, but I think this line points to what Paul says in Romans 8:20-22, that all of creation is desperately longing for its redemption from sin and corruption.

The actual words of the angels’s song are the pivotal line of this carol, so I want to take extra care in examining them. They are mostly taken from the KJV translation of Luke 2:14, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” But modern translations agree that this is based on a transcription error. ESV has, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” and most other translations carry this same sense. The peace belongs to those who have God’s goodwill; they aren’t two unconditional gifts, but a gift and a condition. So how do you please God and qualify for the peace the angels are declaring? Faith in Jesus (Hebrews 11:6). God is eminently pleased with his son Jesus, and through the work of Christ, he takes on our sin, and we take on his righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). And of course God is the gracious (Ps. 116:5) King of Heaven (Dan. 4:37), though this title is not present (that we know of) in the angels’ message to the shepherds.

To sum up, the message of the angels, around which the rest of the song revolves, “Peace on the earth, good will to men // From heavenā€™s all-gracious King,” is not exactly what the angels said to the shepherds in Luke 2, but it is a reasonable paraphrase, as long as one understands the caveat that the peace is available to all, but will not necessarily be received by all.

VERSE 2
Now we jump forward to present day. Or 1849 if you like. The author envisions the heavens as still open (“cloven” means split apart), and the angels as still proclaiming their message of peace over a sad and weary world. The word “angel” means messenger, and Hebrews 1:14 describes them as “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.” So while we don’t know much about the mechanics of how angels function in our world, they are certainly serving the spread of the Gospel of peace, the substance of their song as envisioned by this carol’s author.

I am very impressed by the line “ever o’er its Babel sounds.” The building of the Tower of Babel represents the peak of man’s pride and arrogance, and the result was a confusion of language that prevented mutual understanding and divided and scattered the people. This is such a rich and concise image of the strife and disunity in our present world, and a reminder that it is a result of our own sin and pride.

VERSE 3

This verse restates ideas from verse 2. Mankind has continued to engage in sin and strife, even though angels are singing love and peace over them. Clearly Mr. Sears was bad at math, because at the time of this song’s writing, it had only been 1,845ish years since the angels announced Christ’s birth to the shepherds, not 2,000. Fortunately, enough years have elapsed since then that we may now sing this line truthfully.

VERSE 4

In the final two verses, Mr. Sears urges us to look towards Christ’s second coming. He addresses the listener, toiling under the painful strain of living and working in our present world, and urges them to find peace in the promised rest of God. This rest is to be found now by looking forward to its total fulfillment in the age to come (Heb. 4:0-11).

VERSE 5

Now we focus fully on the future age when all believers will be united with Christ in the recreated and restored earth. The author calls this time the “age of gold,” and is correct in saying it is predicted by prophets, many of whom wrote in poetic forms. This is the time when peace will truly cover the earth (Isa. 65:25, Rev. 21:4, 22:22-27). Peace is ancient because it is the state in which creation existed before the fall (Gen. 1:31), and the specific message of peace through Christ is nearly as old, having been first hinted at all the way back in Genesis 3:15. In the new creation, the redeemed creation will finally perfectly reflect the divine vision of God and Man at peace.

Accessibility

I think most people who hear this song (and listen) will understand that it’s about Jesus’ birth, and the song of peace that the angels sang that night, and continue to sing over our struggles today, and that will be perfected in heaven. Many of the other theological gems in this song are hiding behind archaic language and require some heavy thinking to tease out. When singing this in church, I would stress that the peace the angels are singing about is the peace with God and Man that can only be found through Christ, not just a generic feeling of peace and goodwill untethered to the Gospel.

Conclusions

Will it worship? I hope so! But I have to give it a maybe. The message of peace on earth, now in part, fully in the age to come, all through the work of Jesus and his Spirit, is timeless and an essential part of the story of God. But this song is a little heavy on the peace and the angels singing about it, and a little light on mentions of the God who provides that peace. I pray that we present this and other classic Christmas carols in a way that points people toward the meaningful Gospel truths they teach, rather than letting people hear only nostalgia and holiday spirit.

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

WE PRAISE YOU – Brandon Lake, Matt Redman, Bethel Music

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Image by Reuben Mcfeeters from Unsplash

I’ve really enjoyed this song by legendary worship songwriters Brandon Lake, Brian Johnson, Matt Redman, and Phil Wickham. It’s an exciting, empowering, uplifting call to worship that we’ve been singing with our congregation for months. But as I’ve been digging into what songs mean, and what we think they mean when we sing them, this song’s chorus has started to bother me. Will we really see God break down every wall? And does praising God really do all the things this song says it does? Is “We Praise You” biblical? Take a look with me.

Focus

“We Praise You” is directed at God, and uses “we” language, so it’s designed to be an expression of a congregation’s praise to God, not just an individual. The focus of the song is on praising God and what happens when we praise. In the chorus we get a little explanation for why God deserves that praise; in this song, it’s mostly because he overcomes obstacles.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
In this verse, we ask God to make our praise into a weapon that silences the enemy and conquers all anxiety. Praise is used to fight literal battles in the Old Testament (2 Chron. 20:22, potentially Exodus 17:11) and spiritual ones in the New Testament. It’s hard to find word-for-word examples, aside from maybe Paul and Silas’ musical prison break (Acts 16:25-26), but in Ephesians 6:17-18, Paul talks about a sword that is connected to the word of God, the Holy Spirit, and prayer. Those three things come together when we praise God in Bible-based song. Our enemy the devil flees when we resist him (James 4:7), and Paul’s answer to anxiety sounds a lot like praise (Phil. 4:6).

I’m having trouble finding anywhere in the Bible that depicts praises actually rising (Comment any examples you know of!), but it’s not much of a stretch, since God is envisioned on a high and exalted throne, (Ps. 7:7) so anything that we offer him would have to arise in some sense. This could also be connected to the idea of incense and its pleasant smell rising up before God, which is an image used to describe our prayers in Revelation 5:8. I think the “let it rise” line is meant to depict our praise as growing and getting stronger and louder as much as anything else.

VERSE 2
For singing God’s name in the dark, see Acts 16 again, and numerous Psalms. It doesn’t always change everything in the sense of changing our circumstances, but it changes everything in the way we perceive our circumstances.

Singing with all we are could be a shallow exhortation to put our whole physical effort into singing or a description of the kind of life of worship that Paul calls being a living sacrifice (Rom 12:1). I appreciate that when we claim victory here, it’s God’s victory. He doesn’t need our praise weapons to win a fight that he’s already completely won (Col 2:15). So our fighting and singing are just an outgrowth of his victory.

CHORUS
“We’ll see You break down every wall // We’ll watch the giants fall”

Here we go. Every wall? There are plenty of figurative walls and giants in my life that God isn’t going to topple. He doesn’t promise to break down the wall between you and your next promotion, slay the giant of cancer in your life, or even necessarily break through to your wayward daughter, brother, or spouse. God can and does break through a lot of those barriers. He still heals, provides, and mends relationships. I just object to the use of the word “every” because I think it creates a big opportunity for misunderstanding and misapplication, and then someone may well feel that they’ve been lied to by God or the church when a loved one dies of an illness or some other tragedy occurs in their life.

If we take this verse in a purely eschatological sense, it becomes more accurate. None of those walls and giants will exist in eternity in God’s presence, so maybe that’s what the authors intend? Sadly, taking the song this way detracts from the exciting immediacy of the lyrics. “We’ll see you” and “we’ll watch” sound like descriptions of things that will happen here on earth in our lifetime.

When we sang this song in church recently, I reframed the chorus to the congregation a little bit, pointing to the barriers that sin builds in our lives to separate us from God (Isa. 59:2) and the walls of hostility between us and other people (Eph. 2:14-15), and talked about how these walls can keep us from praising God and hearing from him. I emphasized that those are the walls God is promising to break down this morning. I’m not sure if that’s what the authors intended, but it made the song singable and meaningful for me.

Regarding the line, “Fear cannot survive when we praise you,” it’s important to remember that the Bible talks about fear in two different ways. The first is awe and reverence before a holy and all-powerful God who holds our lives in his hands. The second is fear of man, or fear of trouble in this life. Luke 12:4-5 mentions both types. We are to fear God and not man. I think this song is clearly referring to this second type of fear, not saying we shouldn’t fear God. It’s clear from Scripture that God’s presence, his power, and his love drive out fear. If praise brings those things to light, it follows that it too would serve to powerfully combat unhealthy fear.

INTERLUDE
Some people don’t like ohs. I don’t mind them. Here they’re basically just part of the instrumental. The ohs also add emphasis to the words sandwiched between them: “we praise You.”

VERSE 3

Peter walked with Jesus on rough waters until he let his fear overwhelm his faith (Matt. 14:22-33. This line is praying for a faith that doesn’t falter in the face of fear. Trusting in the Lord also gives us the kind of peace that calms our inner storms (Isa. 26-3-4).

BRIDGE 1
What is real living and freedom? What does heaven sound like? This! But what is “this?” Is it this song? This worship service? Praising God?

My best understanding is that “this” refers to the act of praising God. By extension, it is encompassing the worship service in which the song is being sung, declaring that our worship gatherings are a foretaste of our afterlife with Jesus. That should be true, but it isn’t always. This bridge challenges me to make sure that my church is a place that paints a picture of what kingdom life should be like. No one wants to sing “this is what heaven sounds like” if what they hear at church is judgment, legalism, politics, cliques, or materialism.

BRIDGE 2
“I can’t hold back my praise // I gotta let it out!” (x10)
The extensive repetition of this bridge offers some time to meditate on a related quote from C. S. Lewis, who agreed that Christians who really delight in God simply can’t hold back their praise.

“We delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.”

Accessibility

Most of the song is simple. It’s easy to sing and learn, and it’s an energetic introduction to the idea of praising God. Someone uninitiated might not understand where some of the references come from, but they make clear enough metaphors that the newcomer will still get the gist of what is being said. (Everyone knows what it means to watch a giant fall, even if they’ve never read 1 Samuel.)

My concerns, as explained above, are that a new-or-not-yet-believer will not understand what kind of walls God does and does not promise to break down, and that they will not understand what is meant by “this” in the first bridge.

Music

This song has excellent opener energy. It starts out with an exciting drums-and-guitar intro before dipping down into a more-chill-but-still-driving verse and then launching into the chorus. The little instrument dropout before each chorus is a really effective way to give an extra explosion of energy. The bridge drops down abruptly in typical worship song fashion, but then takes another step down to kick-drum-only before starting to build up again, which is fun and slightly different. The we do the big chorus two more times and wind it up with the catchy oh-oh-oh part. And then the song ends.

But wait, there’s more!

That’s where we always end the song in church, but it’s actually a fake-out ending. Brandon starts into a secondary quasi-improvised bridge which builds through several (maybe 8? or 30?) repetitions into another bridge 1 and then the chorus. This part of the song isn’t bad, but it takes it to 7 minutes long, and I think it would get tiresome if you did it that way every time. In my opinion, it’s better to kill it at the first ending 90% of the time and maybe do the elongated version once in a while to spice things up.

Chords and drum parts aren’t too tricky. Just make sure you nail the dropouts and keep the energy up on all the choruses, and watch the odd rhythmic groove on the bridges. This song definitely benefits from the use of a multitrack for those fun background synth sounds and extra electric guitars. I hope your bass player likes 16th notes! Melody is easy to pick up but it stays up pretty high during the chorus so I typically transpose the whole song down a few steps.

Conclusions

Will it worship? Maybe.

I still like this song, but I’m not sure if we’ll continue singing it in church. If we do, it will be with some explaining. I just think the chorus is too vague and the bridge too ambiguous to present them to a congregation without additional context.

Scripture quotations are from the ESVĀ® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard VersionĀ®), Copyright Ā© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.

THINGS OF HEAVEN – Red Rocks Worship

/ Jason Henry / Leave a comment

Image by Jennifer Griffin on Unsplash

“Things of Heaven” is the title track from Red Rocks Worship’s newest EP. It grabbed my attention with its impassioned cry of “Here! Now!” and energized my spirit with its eager invitation for God to work in and through us to transform us into his Kingdom on earth.

Focus

This is a song about pursuing God’s presence and reign. We also envision ourselves on the brink of a new revival by the work of God’s Spirit.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
We anticipate…something! Wind is an allusion to the work of the Holy Spirit, and also fits nicely with the other nature images of dawn and tides in this verse. References to mystery and “things unseen” (Heb. 11:1) remind us of our limited perspective. We don’t know exactly what God is going to do or how he is going to do it, but we trust that he is going to do some imminent work of revival. This verse places us right at the brink of something new happening.

PRE-CHORUS
“Holy Spirit, come // Hover over us”
Pretty standard invitation to the Spirit. The reference to hovering is a callback to Genesis 1:2 when the Spirit is hovering over the pre-creation waters. In my mind, this means acknowledging that I am not fully formed yet and asking the Spirit to continue creating me as he wills.
There is potential for confusion here. What good is it to ask an omnipresent God to come or go anywhere? Furthermore, the Holy Spirit already indwells every Christian. This kind of invitation is a poetic way of asking God to make the presence of his Spirit evident and to increase our awareness of it.

CHORUS
“Open the Heavens, fling wide the gates // Unleash Your presence, pour out Your grace // Show me Your glory, the power of Your love // Cause even a glimpse is more than enough for me“
Here we make several requests of God that amount to different poetic pleas to experience his presence.
The heavens open in a couple different ways in the Bible. In the Old Testament, it often means rain and, by extension, God’s blessings (Mal 3:10). In the New Testament, it’s usually a special glimpse of God himself, specifically in the glorified Jesus (Matt. 3:16, Acts 7:56, Rev 19:11). The lyrics here could be taken both ways, but I lean toward the second.
Opening gates to invite in the King of Glory comes from Psalm 24.
“Unleash your presence” clarifies the pre-chorus; we’re not just asking God to be present, which he already is, but for his presence to be unleashed, that is powerfully active, overwhelming, doing stuff. Exactly what stuff you expect him to do will vary widely by denomination.
We also ask to see and experience God’s grace, glory, and the power of his love. These pleas remind me of Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:16-19, and I think they fit in the same vein.
Like the woman in Matthew 9:21, we long so deeply to experience God, that even a tiny fraction of his glory, power, love, and grace is more than sufficient for our joy and restoration.

VERSE 2
“You’re willing and able, You’re making a table // In front of me, before my enemies”
I’m very comfortable saying God is able to do anything he wants. I’m very cautious to assume his willingness to do a given thing unless he’s made it clear in Scripture. Applied only to this line, I think God is absolutely willing to prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies (Psalm 23:5). He will always provide for his sheep, no matter what frightening circumstances we face. The potential for error comes in the last line, where we say that he’s going to “do so much more than we’ve known before.” This idea is repeated throughout the whole song, so it’s important that we have the right idea about what it means for God to do something new.

BRIDGE
“We’re gonna see the things of Heaven // Here! Now!”
Dry bones are from Ezekiel 37 where the dead osseous matter represents the exiled people of Israel. God breathes his Spirit into them (with lots of wind imagery), and they are restored to life and given a land of their own. This is a classic image of revival that pops up in lots of worship songs. They don’t dance in Ezekiel, but it’s a reasonable poetic addition since dancing is all over the Old Testament as an expression of joyful worship. And what greater cause can there be for dancing than being resurrected from death?
The strongholds we fight against and which must bow in the face of God’s presence are “arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (2 Cor. 10:5).
The climax of this song is the last line of the bridge, and it’s also the line that takes the most unraveling. What are the “things of heaven,” and can we really expect/demand them here and now? This phrase appears to be absent from Scripture (“heavenly things” appears a few times, but I don’t think this song is talking about the tabernacle furnishings from Hebrews 9:23, or the concepts that Nicodemus isn’t ready for in John 3:12)
My best understanding is that this is a declaration of trust based on the Lord’s Prayer. The lyric, “we’re gonna see your kingdom power” seems to support this. It’s saying that when we pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10), we can absolutely trust God to bring that about right here and right now. To what extent is an open question, and I don’t think the song is demanding all the things of heaven to be brought about immediately, but it is definitely only focused on the “already” aspect of “already/not yet.”

OUTRO
No new ideas here, just a couple lines about pouring out the Spirit and God doing something new. Some more wind. I wouldn’t include these lines when leading the song, since they’re more of a spontaneous coda. I might say my own prayer during the outro.

Accessibility

This song contains some Scriptural deep cuts that most people will miss (and that I didn’t even think about until I really dug in). That doesn’t bother me, as I believe new believers and non-believers will have no trouble grasping the main points of the song. I do think there are some lines that people could get hung up on, like the mysterious wind blowing in verse 1, or trying to figure out what the “things of heaven” are in the bridge. To alleviate this, I would definitely try to shed some light on one or two of these potentially confusing lines in my introduction to the song at church.
My main concern with this song is that people may not understand what is meant by “something new,” “new revival,” the changing tides, the breaking dawn, and “so much more than we’ve known before.” These lines allude to and emphasize a major, imminent change for the church, the exact nature of which is left open to interpretation. Some negative consequences of this could be an over-emphasis on end-times speculation, an inflated view of one’s own ministry, or even an expectation of a major change in doctrine. On the other, safer end of the spectrum, these lines could be understood to refer only to personal revival and a new level of intimacy and obedience between God and the individual worshiper. I think the authorial intent, and the clearest meaning of the words is between those two extremes. I think the lyrics anticipate at least a local revival, but possibly a regional or even global revival of the Church in which hearts are turned toward Jesus by the power and presence of his Spirit and God builds his Kingdom through his Church on earth. If that’s something you believe God is promising to your church, community, or planet, great! If not, this likely isn’t the song for you.

Music

The dynamic arc of this song is very standard for worship music. I can’t get enough of the drop at the end of the bridge! The iii chord at the end of the verse lines is a nice touch. I don’t think any of the instrumental parts of this song would be too difficult for volunteers to learn
The melody of the chorus is super easy to learn; the verses are a little trickier because of the skips, and the bridge might throw your congregation the first couple times.

Conclusions

I like the song, and I think it’s a good expression of faith in the Holy Spirit’s reviving work in our hearts and churches, and his kingdom-building work through us. I am a little uncomfortable with claiming that God is about to do something “new” when it seems to me that the thrust of Scripture on this topic is that sending his Son, and then his Spirit, was the “new” thing, and we’re still living in that reality, not doing another new thing.
Will it worship? Possibly, but I still need to work through whether the emphasis on a big change/new work of God is going to be helpful or unhelpful to my congregation.