I’ve given it some thought, and I thought we’d take a break for a while from talking about Psalms and talk for a while about the songs we sing, are going to sing, or don’t sing. My intention is to take each song and work through it, talking about the biblical basis for it, or talking about why it isn’t based on sound theology. If you have some recommendations, send them my way!
I thought we’d start with the song How He Loves by John Mark McMillan. I’ve wrestled with this song for a while now. The chorus is great, and blatantly obvious in its meaning. Love the thought there, but the poetic nature of the lyrics made me step back and evaluate. My intention here is to talk about either how I interpret the lyrics, or when possible, talk about the writer’s original intent. The first thing that you learn in Biblical interpretation is that you’re attempting to understand the author’s original intent. Now for the Bible, we have to piece that together, luckily with song writers, we can ask them!
How He Loves starts off with a truth that is not necessarily a popular truth, or an understood truth for that matter. John (when I refer to John, I’m talking about the song writer) starts right off saying, “He is jealous for me.” This is an aspect of God that some people have trouble with, in large part because of the negative connotation that the word jealousy has in today’s society. Let’s break it apart a bit.
In Exodus 20:3, the very first commandment the Lord gives us is, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Throughout the Old Testament, there is talk of our jealous God. In the New Testament, we get glimpses of the same picture. In 1 Corinthians 10:14-22, Paul spends some time talking about idolatry, and at the end of the passage he says, “Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy, are we stronger than He?”
Here we come to a discussion of idolatry again. I think we’ve discussed that in God’s eyes, an idol is something that comes before Him. How devoted to God are we? Do our things come before Him? How about our family, does that come before Him? If it does, then it is an idol. Now, I’m not saying that things or family are bad things. I’m saying that they are idols to us if they are more important to us than God. Occasionally in the Bible we see God testing His people to see if they are really devoted to Him. Sometimes people show they are, sometimes not. Perhaps the starkest case is when God calls on Abraham to sacrifice the son that has been given to him after a lifetime of waiting. Abraham immediately obeyed, because he trusted His Lord to provide. His son was not more important to him than his God.
Now, we will certainly never be put in that exact situation, or will we? What if your son or daughter someday feels called to the mission field? Are you willing to give them up to do the Lord’s work? What about if the Lord lays it upon your heart to sell some of your things so that you can give? Are you willing, or are you more attached to your stuff than to your Lord. Let me ask this question, what is more important on a Sunday morning, that the worship sounds/looks the way it needs to so that you can worship the most comfortably, or that you are there with hearts poured out before the Lord regardless of the style? Bob Kauflin has posted a wonderful discussion of idols in worship at http://www.worshipmatters.com. I would encourage you to visit the site and read his discussion. My point here is that idolatry has a tendency to creep up in our hearts, and it’s usually good things that begin to supplant our Lord.
Hopefully, what you realize, as all of us should realize, is that we are hard hearted sheep. We wander aimlessly sometimes and He has to bring us back. The illustration of us being sheep, and the Lord being our good shepherd is one that the more you think about it, and the more you study it, the more apt it becomes. God is jealous for our affections. Why? Because He knows what is best for us, and He knows that the only place we will find satisfaction is in Him. So much like a shepherd sometimes has to aggressively care for his sheep, so sometimes the Lord has to wear our hearts down.
“[He] loves like a hurricane; I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.” A tree is an immovable object. Most trees don’t do a lot of bending on their own, but in the face of a hurricane, a constant pressure, the tree has two choices, it can bend or be uprooted. Our Lord knows our uprooting point though, unlike the hurricane and the tree, and so, He applies the pressures needed, until we finally bend and then….
“All of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory. I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me.” We get it; we see the Lord’s working in our lives. We are drawn near to Him, and all we can see is the beauty and majesty of our God. And most of all, when we are once again in right relationship with Him; we understand that all of the trials that brought us to the point of repentance were actually love. Yes, it hurt, but if He had not pushed, we would have remained unsatisfied. We would have remained lost. It hurt coming back, but God loves us so much, that He is willing to see us go through pain, to see us more satisfied. It’s much like as if we had a child that needed an operation. The child doesn’t understand why they must submit to pain. But the parent knows that the pain is but temporary, and will allow the child to live more freely and longer (I’m sure you can think of examples.)
So after we consider such things, we must sing, “Oh, how He loves us!” Next week, sloppy wet kisses and grace.
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