Charity Gayle

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 requests—especially those that cause us anxiety—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! 😂

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 Schütze from Unsplash

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 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.

THANK YOU JESUS FOR THE BLOOD – Charity Gayle

/ Jason Henry / 4 Comments
white feathers

Image by Evie S. on Unsplash

A worship team member suggested this song to me recently, and the more I listen to it, the more I am moved to gratitude and worship. Jesus has done so, so much for me with his sacrificial death and this song paints that picture beautifully. But is this song scriptural, and is it suitable for congregational worship? Looking into those questions sent me on a deep dive into the use of blood in Scripture, specifically how the blood of Jesus is described in the New Testament. Here’s what I’ve found so far.

Focus

This song is centered on the atoning work of Jesus, specifically through his blood. It thoroughly acknowledges our sin and the separation from God that results, and how the blood of the Lamb frees us, saves us, washes us, and transforms us into ransomed sons and daughters of our Father.

Lyric Analysis

VERSE 1
1-2: Who likes being called a wretch? Nobody. But that’s how Paul describes himself in Romans 7:24. Bible Hub says that the Greek word used there means distressed, miserable, or beaten down by hardship. Certainly an accurate description of our pre-Christ predicament, and even of our continual struggling with sin after conversion, which is what Paul is talking about in Romans 7.

3-4: Luke uses the word “lost” frequently to describe people who are far from God (Luke 15:6, 15:24, 19:10), and to emphasize Jesus’ pursuit of these lost sheep. According to other New Testament passages, Satan blinds unbelievers to keep them from seeing the truth of the Gospel and finding healing in Jesus (John 12:40, 2 Cor. 4:4, 1 John 2:11). The foolish virgins in Matthew 25 ran out of time and missed out on the wedding banquet.

5, 8: Isaiah 59:2 says, “your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” But even when we were far from God, dead in our sin, he still loved us, or “held me in your sight,” as the song says (Eph. 2:4-5).

6-7, 8-9: In the parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus, Jesus describes paradise and Hades as being separated by a wide chasm (Luke 16:26). There is a huge, uncrossable gulf between the place of God’s mercy and the place of torment where selfish sinners end up. This is the kind of great divide that Jesus crosses in order to come to us.

11: As far as I can tell, Jesus is never specifically depicted as leaving his throne in Scripture, and some people object to the phrase for that reason. But I think it’s a good poetic image of the sacrifice he made in humbling himself, taking human form, and suffering on the cross (Phil 2:5-8, John 1:14). Being born in a feeding trough is kind of the opposite of reigning from a throne, isn’t it?

12: Jesus is building heaven (…or his throne? It’s unclear exactly which one “it” is referring to.) here inside. Presumably inside me, or inside us. This seems to refer to the internal transformation that comes with belonging to the Kingdom of God. I wonder if it’s also a reference to the inaccurate-but-well-known KJV translation of Luke 17:21, “the kingdom of God is within you.” It should read (and does in nearly every other translation), “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” Still, an aspect of Kingdom-building certainly takes place inside us, particular the transformative work of the Spirit. I don’t think there’s a big issue with this line, as long as we don’t think that the Kingdom is only being built inside us. It’s also being built around and through us.

13-14: Jesus himself is the propitiation for our sins, that is an offering to appease an offended party. We’ve offended God with our sin; and Jesus fixes that debt for us (1 John 2:2).

15: Jesus has freed us from bondage to sin (Gal. 5:1, Rom. 6:22).

16: We have no real hope until the blood of Christ brings us near to him (Eph. 2:12-13).

CHORUS
1: Thanking Jesus for his blood is an obvious and appropriate response to his sacrificial death. But the singer thanks him for “the blood applied.” What is the blood applied to? The song’s outro gives the answer, quoting from the hymn “Glory to His Name,” where it says the blood is applied to my heart. But is that idea scriptural?

When I think of applying blood, the first Biblical example that comes to mind is the sprinkling of blood on the mercy seat or atonement cover that was part of the Ark of the Covenant. This is where the high priest would sprinkle the blood of a bull on the Day of Atonement to cover over Israel’s sin. (Lev. 16:14-15). The book of Hebrews in the New Testament also refers to the mercy seat in chapter 9, and this is where I think we find the biblical basis for this song. Following a description of the earthly tabernacle furnishings and how they must be repeatedly purified with blood from sacrifices, the author says,

“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Hebrews 9:11-14

So Jesus’ blood purifies our conscience. The conscience is our ability to distinguish between good and bad, which is an integral part of who we are and one of the primary things broken by the Fall. I think heart is a fair synonym for that. I also think it’s worth noting that the author of Hebrews uses corporate language here; Jesus isn’t just purifying my heart in isolation, but our heart as the Church, his collective bride. (If you are interested in learning more about the idea of sacrifice and how it makes atonement and purification, the Bible Project has a great video on the topic that you can watch here.)

2: The color white, especially with regard to white clothing, is used all through the Bible to signify purity. The exalted Jesus wears white (Matt. 17:2), and so do his angels (John 20:12) and the saints in heaven (Rev. 7:9). In the Old Testament, prophets like Isaiah look forward to the day when God will wash his people white from their crimson sins (Isaiah 1:18).

3: Jesus has not only saved our life, but he holds our life safe with him, and he is our life (Col. 3:3-4).

4: The darkness is our enslavement to sin and the forces of evil; Jesus redeems us from that and gives us status as citizens in his Kingdom of marvelous light (Col. 1:13, 1 Peter 2:9).

VERSE 2
1-2: 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” If the sins were ours, then it stands to reason that the cross and the tomb were ours, representing the fate we were headed for until Jesus took those sins on our behalf.

3-4: Jesus was indeed buried for three days. The walking part is assumed. He could have run or skipped, I guess?

5: Death loses its sting in 1 Corinthians 15:55.

6: John 3:16. Eternal life. Boom.

7-8: Much of the New Testament details what it means to live a transformed life. Romans 1:1-2 states it most clearly. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin, we get to be living sacrifices to God and he is constantly transforming us and renewing us.

BRIDGE

1-3: If blood represents life, then Jesus’ blood is certainly the strongest life force imaginable (Gen. 9:4, Heb. 7:16). We’ve already detailed some of the wonders that his blood accomplishes. This line is also a reference to the hymn “There is Power in the Blood” by Lewis Edgar Jones.

4-6: Jesus’ work on the cross redeems us as his sons (and daughters by extension) in Galatians 4:4-6.

OUTRO
This is the chorus from the well-known hymn “Glory to His Name,” by Elisha A. Hoffman. And it is, of course, fitting to glorify the name of Jesus (Hebrews 2:9)

Accessibility

This song does not beat around the bush regarding Jesus’ sacrificial death. It cries out “the blood!” four times in the climax of the bridge. It also does not shy away from our culpability in our own sin, and the death that we deserved and would have received apart from Jesus. These ideas are offensive to the non-Christian and jarring to those believers who have grown complacent in their faith. I also doubt this song would play well in churches that emphasize the Christus Victor aspect of Jesus’ death and resurrection and downplay the aspect of substitutionary atonement.

While this song references a lot of Scripture and covers a wide range of theological topics, I think it states its ideas clearly and passionately through word pictures that are accessible even to someone who’s never read the Bible. People unfamiliar with the Gospel will get a clear picture that we believe in a glorious, many-faceted salvation that Jesus bought for us with his blood.

Music

Musically, you could do this song in just about any church. The recording leans on piano and organ for the first half, and then adds punch and dynamic range with the drums and bass, but it would work great with only a single instrument, whether that’s a piano or an acoustic guitar. Its simple gospel style is powerful and playable. While the melody is a little tricky at first, it repeats enough that your congregation will pick it up quickly. The refrain of “Thank you, Jesus,” in the chorus is a good entry point even if that’s the only line someone sings in the whole song.

EDIT: After doing this song on Sunday, I have concluded that the music is deceptively simple. Listening to it, you think it’s easy, but then when you go to play it, you discover just how many chord changes there are and how many little idiosyncrasies there are in the melody of the verses, and how rangy this song is. I still think your band can play it, but make sure your keyboard player and your lead vocalist have plenty of time to learn it before you rehearse.

Conclusions

While I was a little hesitant at first about this song’s blatant emphasis and celebration of the blood of Jesus, I am completely won over. It is likely to offend some people, but that’s exactly what Paul says will happen when you proclaim the Gospel, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18) There is such a wealth of Christ-exalting truth in this song that I am certain I will be singing it in church for a long time.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), Copyright © 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.