The Impact of Music

Lee here... What's up Sell Outs?

I'm a firm believer that music has a way of speaking to me in ways that other things cannot. God gave music to us as a gift. Have you ever experienced a song that really hits home with you? I heard David Crowder say once that worship music allows us to articulate our faith. There are some times when the best way to explain why we do what we do as Christians is through a song.

Anyways, all of that leads me to this -- Last night there were two songs that came to mind that re-emphasized what God was teaching us through Ryan.

Ryan talked about how we often experience the desire to clean ourselves up before approaching God. Let's be honest here. That will never happen. Satan tries to get us to believe that we need to clean ourselves up before we go to God so then he can clean us more. Isn't God able to clean us up entirely, to take us in our imperfections and make us pure and whole again? The song that came to mind in regards to this is called "Come Ye Sinners." One verse touches directly on this idea:

"Come, ye weary, heavy-laden
Lost and ruined by the fall
If you tarry 'til you're better
You will never come at all"

God desires us to approach Him where we are at, sin and all. If we try to "clean" ourselves before doing that, we'll never go to God at all. We are essentially creating a standard of perfection, or at least improvement, that we will never reach on our own. Therefore, we never get to the point where we feel we're ready to approach God. It's all about allowing the Lord to carry our burdens. If we tarry (wait or delay), it's likely we will never even approach God to allow Him to work on us.

The other song touched on the idea of hiding in the strength of the Lord. Ryan termed it hiding in His robe. Some may think this is weakness -- hiding from the dangers that we encounter. However, there is no other source of strength that can empower us more than if we hide and dwell in God's presence.

When we had our quiet time last night, the song "In Your Presence" really captured that concept for me. These lyrics are really powerful:

"In Your presence, that's where I am strong
In Your presence, O Lord my God
In Your presence, that's where I belong
Seeking Your face, touching Your grace
In the cleft of the Rock
In Your presence O God

I want to go where the rivers cannot overflow me
Where my feet are on the rock
I want to hide where the blazing fire cannot burn me
In Your presence O God"

If we are in Christ's robe, in His presence, the fires and rivers we encounter cannot harm us.

These two songs emphasized that all we need to do (and all God wants for us to do) is run to Him wherever we are at and hide in his presence. He is a conqueror and we gain strength in His presence. After all, we are His children (you are a child of the King!), and one of the highest priorities for a father is to protect his children.

-Lee Clarkson