It’s December 23rd, 2 days before Christmas and I have a Christmas treat for you – a new arrangement of the great Christmas/Advent carol, O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The ancient carol was originally written in latin in the 12th century. It is a cry for Emmanuel, God with us, to come and save His people. It also looks ahead to when Christ will come again in glory and truly dwell with His people.

So rejoice. Emmanuel has come and will come again to thee , O people of God.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou rod of Jesse, free
thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
from depths of hell thy people save,
and give them victory o’er the grave.
Rejoice, rejoice…

O come, thou dayspring, come, and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice, rejoice…

I have a new song for you today. I wrote it last year. It is about the absolute wonder of knowing the One – who with one word calms the raging storm, who’s face is brighter than the burning sun, who’s unfailing love has conquered death. The only response is to kneel in wonder and love.

This section from 1 John 4 has been on my heart recently,

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:7-12

Thank you, God that even when we were lost in our sins you loved us. You loved us first with such a passion that you came down from heaven in the form of a servant and offered up your life for ours. Their is no greater love than this. Jesus, I pray that you would give us this same love for each other. For the lost. For the broken. O God, abide in us.
Amen.

I have a new song for you this week called, “Messiah”. I wrote the lyrics in the week leading up to good friday. It is a song about salvation. It begins in repentance and ends in praise of His glorious grace.
I hope it blesses you and leads you to the feet of the One who bears your scars.

Messiah

Oh Light of Man have your mercy here
I am a sinful man
I need your grace like the Earth needs rain
Oh let your rain fall down
I need your grace, My Redeemer

Save me and raise me to life, Messiah
Invade me, I give You my heart, Messiah

You came as one reviled and slain
I know you bore my pain
But a day will come when every knee shall bow
And you will call us home
This child of grace will be home

You are, You are
The Morning Star
Oh Lord you bear my scars
You are, You are
The king of All
For you ransomed man for God

For you ransomed me for God

I’ve got a new song for you this week. I wrote it last year a few days before good friday. As you listen to this song, my prayer is that the wonderment and reality of God’s grace would sink into your heart. And that you would know with a certainty that ‘blood from His side covers your life’.

God Most High
Rejected, despised
Bled in my place
Atoned for my disgrace

God Most High
Came down to earth to die
And took my life
Upon the cross so I might live

Blood from Your side
It covers my life
Peace with my Father
Purchased with your blood

You took my life and made it Yours
You took my life and gave me Yours
My King

Now all my life
I’ll sing of this love divine
And lift you high
I lift you high

Looking for a good piece of fiction to read? Many have read C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, but less have read his other adult fiction series – the Space Trilogy. Comprised of three books “Out of the Silent Planet”, “Perelandra”, and “That Hideous Strength”, these books retell the story of creation and life in the context of other worlds. One of the things I love about C.S. Lewis writing is his ability to write about complex theological truths in creative, digestible language. He creatively inspires the reader to see God’s creative majesty. The second book, “Perelandra” is a masterpiece and one of my favourites of all time. So if you’re looking for a good read that will challenge and inspire you, give this trilogy a read.

Out of the Silent Planet
Buy on Indigo

Perelandra
Buy on Indigo

That Hideous Strength
Buy on Indigo

“LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Psalm 8:1-2

Below is a stunning new picture of the Tarantula Nebula taken by the hubble space telescope. Take a few moments to contemplate this image and the others below and let the majesty, beauty, and immeasurable vastness of God fill your heart. Consider the stars and the expanse of the universe. Then consider the One who set in all in place and keeps it in existence. Consider who He is. Consider who you are.

The Tarantula Nebula
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 19:1

The Elephant’s Trunk Nebula
“He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.” Psalm 147:4

Magnetic loops emanating from the Sun
“Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. ” Psalm 74:6

The Carina Nebula
“Who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea.” Job 9:7-8

The North American Nebula
“For his (God’s) invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20

Open Star Cluster NGC 6791
“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” Psalm 33:6

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Being one-half Irish myself, I did a little research today on St. Patrick the man. He is typically remembered for supposedly driving the snakes out of Ireland, but in reality his greatest legacy is that he brought Christianity to Ireland.

Somewhere around the year 400AD, when he was a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him. During his 6-year captivity he turned to God in prayer. Here is what he wrote in his journal,

“The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was rosed, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same.” “I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain.”

When he was 20, he had a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britian, where he reunited with his family. In Britain he began to study for the priesthood and returned to Ireland in 433AD to preach the gospel. He converted thousands to faith in Jesus, throughout his 40-year ministry to the irish people. He trained 1000 pastors, planted 700 churches, and was the first noted person in history to take a strong public stand against slavery.

He used the shamrock, the symbol of St. Patrick’s day, as a way of explaining the trinity.

As we celebrate this Patrick’s Day, let’s not think back to the man who drove the snakes out of Ireland, but the man whom God used to bring the gospel to a needy island. Let’s be men and women of prayer like St. Patrick and let God use us to bring the gospel to this needy land. Sláinte!

Have you ever thought about why we sing the word ‘hallelujah’ or why we end a prayer with ‘Amen’? What do these words mean?

In the christian world these words are extremely familiar, but are rarely explained. All of these words can be found in the bible and were left untranslated from their hebrew (or greek) origins. I believe that the words of our mouth are of consequence, so it is important to know what we’re saying. Our church forefathers intentionally left these words untranslated in our bibles, and I think that there is a beauty to the fact that to this day you will hear the words ‘Amen’, ‘Hallelujah’, and ‘Hosanna’ spoken the same way throughout the world by the saints. Below is a glossary of terms for a few of the most common words we use in our worship services.

Hallelujah
Hallelujah or Halleluyah is word that is found in the scriptures (mainly in the psalms) and in many of our worship songs, and liturgies. It is derived from the hebrew word ‘Halleluya’. In its simplest form it means ‘Praise God’. ’Hallel’ is a hebrew word meaning – joyous praise in song, to boast in God. ‘Yah’ is the shortened form of ‘Yahweh’, the hebrew name for God. So in essence it is an exclamation of praise saying – we joyously praise and boast in God.

Hosanna
Hosanna (Greek) comes from the hebrew ‘Hoshana’ meaning ‘please save’ or ‘salvation has come’. The main new testament scripture that it comes from is Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The crowds cried out ‘Hosanna in the highest’. It is a cry for salvation, as well as a declaration of praise. The word is first found in the scriptures in Psalm 118:25 where it means ‘save, please’, but over the centuries, between this time and the time of Jesus, the word had taken on a slightly different meaning. It was no longer used as just a cry for help, but also a shout of hope and exultation. ‘Salvation! Salvation! Salvation has come!’. So when we are saying “Hosanna in the highest’, we are in fact saying ‘Let all the angels in heaven join the song of praise. Salvation! Salvation! Let the highest heaven sing the song!’

Amen
The hebrew word “Amen’ is a declaration of affirmation. It means ‘Yes, we agree and join in with your declaration’, or ‘True, and firm and reliable is what you have said’. It is a word found commonly in both the old and new testaments. It does not mean ‘prayer time is now over’, which seems to have become its common usage. ‘Amen’ can also mean ‘to confirm’. In 2 Corinthians 1:20 Paul refers to Jesus as the amen or yes to God’s promises. The promises of God find their fulfillment and confirmation in the person and life of Jesus. Jesus is God’s amen to the world.

“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” Isaiah 29:13

I was reading Isaiah 29 this week and I came across this challenging section in verse 13, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me“. The prophet Isaiah is calling the people of Israel to repent for their empty worship based merely on human rules. Jesus in Matthew 15 quotes this verse and charges the pharisees with the same offense – offering to God empty words from a apathetic heart. Holding fast to the traditions of men, instead of drawing near to their God. I think we can learn much from these words. Outwardly proper worship offends God if it is way of evading him at a deeper level. God is after our hearts, not the words of our mouth.

Listen to this quote by Jack Hayford, “The exercises of our enlightened minds may deduce God, but only our ignited hearts can delight Him – and, in turn, experience His desire to delight us.” Throughout scripture God is looking for men (and women) after his Heart. God said that King David was “a man after his own heart” 1 Samuel 13:14 and throughout the psalms you can see his passion on display.

It is so easy to slip into ‘lip service’. Honoring God with the words of our mouth – empty, meaningless words, while not letting him invade the deepest portions of our being. It is so easy to just sing songs about Jesus and consider it ‘worship’, but in reality true worship is an attitude of the heart. Tradition is not enough, in fact it is repulsive to him if it is not infused with a heart brimming with passion. Worshipping God strictly out of duty is insufficient. The thing Jesus would not tolerate about the Pharisees was their hypocrisy. They said one thing with their mouths, but didn’t mean it with their hearts.

I think all of us have at times said or sung things to God that we didn’t entirely mean or feel. “Jesus, You are all that I want”, and I believe that is ok with God if they are things that we desire to mean or feel. God does not require perfection out of us, but he is searching for hearts that desire Him.

Ray David often exhorts us not to slip into just ‘business as usual’ in our Sunday services. In our liturgy and our music it can be all too easy to just go with the flow and miss the heart of true worship. Ask God to help you slip out of the trap of just reciting nice comfortable words or singing pleasant catchy songs. God wants so much more from us than just lip service. He wants hearts after his heart.

Some things to consider…

Does your worship well up from deep within your heart or is it mere lip service?

What is more important to you – the traditions of men or the word of God? Matthew 15:6-9

Are you a man or woman after God’s own heart?