Before The Throne of God

I am one of those crazy people who likes to torture themselves by waking up early so they can run 3-5 or more miles in the morning. I know its hard to believe that there are people out there like me who willing engage in this sort of activity, but nevertheless, we continue to do so day after day.

This process, as painful as it sounds, is actually one of the best times of the day for me. It is a time to be alone for a minute and begin my day with songs of worship. No, I am not good enough to sing and run at the same time, I listen to music on my iPhone.

I can focus my mind on the songs that come over the headphones as I huff along and it actually helps me mentally prepare for my day.

The other day, one of my favorite songs, Before the Throne of God Above, began playing right as I was finishing up my run. I normally stop the music when the run is complete, but I wanted to hear this song before I went inside to begin getting ready for the day. The words of this hymn are deep and passionate, focused on Christ and His place as our High Priest.

The hymn was written by Charitie Lees Bancroft who was the daughter of Re. Sidney Smith, D.D. Rector of Drumragh, County Tyrone, Ireland. She wrote these words in 1863. This song now has a modern tune written by Vicki Cook, but was at one time sung to the tune of another familiar hymn, "Sweet Hour of Prayer". (It takes on a whole new meaning and depth when sung that way.)

I have heard this hymn many times, but on this morning the words "Christ my Savior and my God" stood out to me. I was instantly remembering John 20:17 where Jesus told Mary not to touch Him because He was going "unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God."

Whoa. Pause and think on that for a moment. Jesus just told Mary He was going to her Father and her God.

We can say Christ my Savior and my God, because Christ Himself made the way for us to be able to do so. His death and resurrection made possible the way for us to be able to say that. Before salvation, we are not able to do so. Without Christ's completed work, we are unable to come Before the Throne with the confidence that is found in the song and in the book of Hebrews.


And then I thought of the curtain in the temple that was torn from top to bottom on the day Christ died. God made the way for us to enter into the holy of holies. We sang "Power of the Cross" that night in Praise Band practice. There it was again. "Curtain torn in two, dead are raised to life, Finished, the victory cry!" What a Savior!

Its good for us to be reminded often of the cost of our salvation, but also of the standing we can have with God as a believers. It is a present condition of the redeemed made possible by a past action of the Savior, with a future end-glorification! We have the "strong and perfect plea", for Christ our High Priest, our mediator has opened the way for us to be reconciled to our God!

You can listen to "Before the Throne of God Above" here.

Good Father

No doubt many who are reading this blog now are familiar with the song "Good Good Father". You have heard it on the radio, downloaded it from iTunes or whatever, maybe even sung it in your church's worship service. But, what does that really mean? Your a Good, Good Father? We are taught from an early age in church that God is good. We say the nursery rhyme prayer: "God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food." We hear pastors say that "God is good all the time and all the time God is good", but what does that look like?

While all these things are true, it is not enough to simply say God is good without a clear understanding of what that truly means. We often apply the adjective "good" to things we like. We like pizza, for example, and so pizza is "good". We apply that word to people when they do things that are right or that please us. We tell our children to "be good in school today!"

All of these things portray to us what good means, but these are not adequate enough to express the goodness of God towards us. None of these expressions can truly encompass what God's goodness is.

First, unlike all the previous examples, God is not "good" because He does good things, or because He is good to us, or for us. God is good because it is His character and nature. The chorus of the song simply says, "Your a good good Father-its who you are." This is simple and yet profound at the same time. He is good because it is who He is. It is His character. Unlike a human who may do good one minute, and bad another, God is good because His character never changes. Gen 1:3 says: "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." We read in Ps. 33:5: "He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD." And in Ps. 34:8: "O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." God reveals His character and nature to us in these verses in this way, He does good for that which is good. That means that it may not always be what we want/like, not always pleasant at the time, but it is all ultimately good. That's a hard and scary thought to have. But we are given this word in Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."

We are not told that all will be good according to our standard of good, but His. We are to praise Him still for His goodness: Eph. 5:20: "Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

We praise Him because He is good, and knows how to give good things to His children. (Matthew 7:11)

The book of Romans gives a little more insight to another aspect of God's goodness. In Romans 2:4, Paul writes, "Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering; not knowing the the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" 

In this verse God's goodness is specifically attached to His long-suffering and forbearance. God is revealed as being good in that He is patiently holding back His wrath from a sinful world and from sinful man so that His gospel may go out into the world that mankind may have opportunity to be saved and reconciled to God.

God's goodness is what allows the world an opportunity to accept the free pardon of sin found only in Jesus Christ. God waited 120 years for Noah to build the ark and continue to preach to the people so that His goodness and long-suffering could be demonstrated. We often are critical and think to ourselves that with all the bad going on why doesn't God do something about it? Many skeptics say that the seeming lack of action from God is proof that He does not exist, and yet the Bible says that it is His goodness which keeps Him from bringing His judgment in righteousness. Man is doing the very same thing today that they did in the time of Noah and Paul-despising the riches of His goodness. He is patiently waiting for all to enter in, but there will be a day when His long-suffering ends. I pray that you will find the goodness of God before that day and that you accept Him as your Good, good Father before it is too late.

Here is a link to the song, Good Good Father so you can listen to it.

Resonate Part 2

Yesterday I published part 1 of a series of blogs concerning the word "resonate" and its spiritual and musical implications. Christ begins the "song" in us first, we respond to His song in resonance. We have no capacity to produce sound apart form Him.

Today, I want to continue the idea of resonance with another definition: to have a repetitive pattern that resembles resonance. 1 John 2:6 says, "He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked."

Christ sets up not only the beginning tones in our life, He also established the pattern we must follow. Just as an object that is resonating will follow a similar pattern of sound, we must follow the pattern of life of the Savior. This means putting aside our own desires and replacing them with His desires. (Rom. 12:1-2) We do not continue in the pattern of the world system around us. 

God made us in His image to be His temple. The Holy Spirit living and dwelling in the believer's heart. We can no more pollute the temple of God with the desires of our flesh. 

Notice the way we do that-by abiding in Him. 

John 15:4-5, "Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."

When we try to resonate on our own, we are unsuccessful every time. We cannot thrive and grow apart from Him and His word. Christ, as the vine, supplies what we need as Christians.Just as a branch cannot survive apart from the vine, we cannot survive without Christ.

Another way of saying this is “strike a chord”. We correspond closely or harmoniously. Without being too technical, there are overtones in every note played and these overtones can vibrate or resonate in harmony when the main note or chord is played. 

We say something "strikes a chord" with us when we respond to something we agree with or are familiar with. John 8:31-32, "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

We must be familiar with, correspond closely, or be in harmony with Christ. This is through the Word alone. We abide in Him, we are fed by Him as the vine, and we produce the fruit in our lives that allows the sound of salvation to continue ringing across the land.

Resonate Part 1

I was going to write some amazingly profound reason for starting this blog, but I couldn't find the right words. So I will just say it point blank. I wanted to start blogging about the joys and the trials of being a Music Director, to write some thoughts on music from the God's word, and to gain some perspective of what all of the last twelve years has taught me.

So here goes my blog. Launch date: June 8, 2016.

When we think about music, we have catch phrases, mantras, words, and other sayings that we use as music directors, educators, and conductors to try in some way to convey how we want our choirs, orchestras, and bands to sing or play. Many times we use these words so much that often we ourselves do bot think of the deeper meaning that they may have. We have a set amount of time with our groups to teach, promote, and encourage music and it never seems like enough, so these phrases we use eventually loose their impact. So to begin, lets examine a word that we use in music and try to gain some sense of deeper meaning.

Lets start with resonate.

We tell our singers to resonate, to sing where they have the most resonance. We encourage chest voice for men and head voice for women. We talk about the resonance that musical instruments have or how one room sounds more resonant than another when performing in it. But what does it really mean? What does it mean for the Christian?

According to the dictionary, Resonate means to exhibit resonance; a sound or vibration produced in one object that is caused by the sound or vibration produced in another. It means to expand, to intensify, or amplify the sound of.

So let's take one part of this definition at a time. We'll start with: sound produced in one object caused by another. 

Looking at this through Col. 2:13-15, which says: "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, haven forgiven all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.", will get some perspective.

We are quickened- to make one alive together, with Christ. “quickened together with. (Eph. 2:5) we have life because the resonation started in something other than ourselves. We had no ability to come to the Father alone, no way to "resonate" on our own. God through Christ provided the first tones which resonate in us. We have no way to produce tones apart from him. Christ gave us life in Him through His resurrection. He started the “sound” in us. when we respond to His call, we then become resonators of the life in us!

It is a spiritual quickening, being made alive, as before, we were dead, (separated) from God because of sin.

When the vocal chords begin to vibrate, the resonance transmits to places in your head and chest that are unable to vibrate on their own. Sinus cavities, and other parts of our head resonate to send the sound out. Men have a chest voice, women have head voice. This is used to describe the best “vocal placement” for the best possible sound in each gender.

Christ starts the quickening in us, who are unable to vibrate on our own. We are unable to come alive, to remove the sin separating us from Him. We are dependent on Him to start the work in us.

We then resonate the sound of Christ in our lives and transmit that sound to those around us, so that they may too hear it, and resonate as well with life from Christ.