There’s a killer decease that every human heart is prone to, that is the disease of want.

Want want want. I want an iPad 2. I want a macbook pro. I want to be famous. I want more friends. I want to be thinner. I want to be more popular. I want to be liked by others. I want to have the best clothes. I want this, I want that.

Proverbs 11:24 and 13:25 actually talk about those who ‘suffer want’. This has certainly been my experience. Your heart can so easily and quickly begin to want, and it’s not a pretty place…’suffering want’ makes you anxious, restless and unhappy, as you can’t chill until your heart has what it wants.

So what’s the answer to all this want want wanting?

Psalm 23:1-2
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.

Have you ever connected the idea that God is your shepherd, with all the wanting in your heart? God leads and shepherds us in such a way, that we finally come to the place of being free from suffering want, and finally being satisfied.

Talking about ‘green pastures’, Barnes Notes on the Bible says:

The idea is that of calmness and repose, as suggested by the image of flocks “lying down on the grass.” But this is not the only idea. It is that of flocks that lie down on the grass “fully fed” or “satisfied,” their wants being completely supplied. The exact point of contemplation in the mind of the poet, I apprehend, is that of a flock in young and luxuriant grass, surrounded by abundance, and, having satisfied their wants, lying down amidst this luxuriance with calm contentment. It is not merely a flock enjoying repose; it is a flock whose wants are supplied, lying down in the midst of abundance. Applied to the psalmist himself, or to the people of God generally, the idea is, that the wants of the soul are met and satisfied, and that, in the full enjoyment of this, there is the conviction of abundance – the repose of the soul at present satisfied, and feeling that in such abundance want will always be unknown.

But that’s not all! We can now understand Psalm 23 (and indeed all the Psalms) in a way that King David couldn’t, through the lens of the gospel. Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible shows how this is speaking of Christ…. amazing:

This is one part of the shepherd’s work, and which is performed by Christ, Ezekiel 34:14; by these “green pastures” may be meant the covenant of grace, its blessings and promises, where there is delicious feeding; the fullness of grace in Christ… Here Christ’s sheep are made to “lie down”, denoting their satiety and fulness; they having in these green pastures what is satisfying and replenishing; as also their rest and safety, these being sure dwellings and quiet resting places, even in the noon of temptation and persecution.

Oh the riches and satisfaction for our souls in Christ! The Apostle Paul talks says ‘I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want’. He was a man who knew Christ was his shepherd.

Have you learned the secret? I’m not sure I have. But I’m learning to feed my very hungry soul on the riches of Christ, particularly when I can feel myself suffering want. For, as C S Lewis puts it, he who has God and everything else, has no more than he who has God only.

A series of articles on prayer written by Joel Virgo are currently being featured on The Resurgence Blog, a resource based in America and run in partnership with Mars Hill Church Seattle and the Acts 29 network.

With over 20,000 subscribed followers, the blog is a significant resource and speaks into the lives of many.

The series looks to the book of Nehemiah for lessons in how to pray fervently and effectively. Please take a look at this helpful resource and be encouraged to share it with others.

The biblical doctrine of prayer is not in contradiction of its doctrine of providence, but in correspondence with it.

Prayer is among God’s ordained means to God’s ordained ends: He who has purposed to accomplish His will has also purposed to do so through and with the prayer of his people.

Prayer often seems to us the weakest of all our works and sometimes the most irrelevant. But the power of prayer is, quite simply, the power of the divine response to prayer; it finds its power in the strength of his love, as the power of the baby’s cry lies in the devotion of the baby’s parent. Its relevance is asserted by God who tells us to pray.

Peter Lewis
The Living God
P 312.

I guess it’s easy to think that caring for the poor is what the ‘social justice’ people do, or just a few projects we do on the side. But the truth is, it’s at the heart of the gospel. The first words Jesus proclaimed in public are quoting Isaiah 61 – ‘sent to the poor’ (see Luke 4:16-20). Also, remembering the poor is quite a clear theme through scripture – which obviously climaxes with Christ, the One who became poor to save the poor.

Anyways, heard a lot of stuff today but here’s some thoughts for songwriters… There are three types of compassion/justice songs:

1) Songs that inform us about the poor and injustice. Eg the verses to Delirious’ Our God Reigns

2) Songs that help us worship in the place of poverty, injustice. Eg It is well with my soul

3) Songs that commission us to go to the poor. Eg God of Justice

But all of these MUST be in the context of the gospel – The God of justice sent His son to the poor to bind up their brokenness and bring freedom to the captives, and by extension we carry on this Kingly work of Christ as His hands and feet, as His church. Our motivation for mission and source of compassion is the gospel, and the agent for God’s mission is not a charity but the Church. Yes!

I’m challenged as I haven’t written any songs in either of these 3 camps. Hmmm. Well there’s my thoughts for the day. Over and out

I’m reading The Living God by Peter Lewis at the moment (an astonishing book) and just read about Mount Sinai and the 10 Commandments. I was so stunned by this paragraph, I had to share it. It’ll help to read Exodus 19:16-19 for the context…

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.  Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain  trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. Exodus 19:16-19

Peter Lewis writes:

“It is surely fair to say that awe is in danger of becoming the forgotten emotion among Christians today. This is not because we know better but because we know less! We have lost sight somewhat of the awesome holiness of God. We have become desensitized to sin. We do not realize how extraodrinary it is that we can survive in God’s presence. The fact that it took a Calvary for us to ‘have confidence to enter the Most High Place’ (Heb 10:19) should make us think again: ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse for us’ (Gal 3:13)

There is only one place on earth more awesome than Sinai and that is Calvary. There God the One and Only did not come down to a mountain but was lifted up on a cross. There the Son of God, who had come in our human nature, bore the penalty for our human sin, our great rebellion against God. There the Judge was judged in our place and the One who had given the commandments died for those who had broken them.”

The living God, the true God, the God of the bible – alone – is truly awesome.

Worshipping in spirit is the opposite of empty formalism and traditionalism. Worshipping in truth is the opposite of worship based on an inadequate view of God. Worship must have heart and head. Worship must engage emotions and thought.

Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and church full of artificial admirers (like people who write generic anniversary cards for a living). On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse he disciple of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and morrow of biblical worship.

Worship is simply loving something or someone with all your heart. Whatever it is you love will soon become the priority of your life; everything you do will revolve around it… it defines you.

Everybody worships something. You were born worshipping and you can’t stop, your heart is always consumed with something – it’s just a case of what or who. Career? Sex? Blog-ratings? Appearance? Acceptance?

The Bible teaches that worshipping something that isn’t God leaves us empty and doesn’t truly satisfy our hunger for happiness and pleasure. This is because we were designed to worship God, and it’s only when we worship God that we find true happiness, pleasure and satisfaction.

To worship God is to be fully human, it was what we were made to do. Worshipping God means loving Him above everything else, He’s the priority and the centre of your affections.

What’s more, worshipping God doesn’t start with something we do, it starts with God – He loved us first. God came to us in Jesus and saved us… and worship is our response to God. The more you get to know God, who He is and what He’s done for us, the more you want to worship Him. And our response to God affects everything we say, think and do – from friendships to finances, from careers to mealtimes – all of it is for the glory of God.

Our worship to God will be expressed in everything we do; eating, drinking, relating, singing, living…. if God is the love of our hearts, we will want to please Him in all of these areas. Singing songs is just one way in which we express our worship to God.

While there’s a strong argument for saying “yes”, it is clear from Scripture and church history that the people of God have always benefited from contemporary expressions of eternal doctrine applied and expressed in a way that their generation can easily grasp. The meaning and content of Scripture should always be central to the songwriter’s work; but there is value in moving beyond the mere reciting of Scripture in order to explore the meaning, much as a preacher might do in a sermon.

The first thing we must realize is that worship songs play a significant part in our lives; not only for us as musicians, but for all those who attend our services. Our congregations may hear some fantastic biblical teaching on a Sunday morning, but when they leave they’re more likely to be humming one of the worship songs than reciting a section of the sermon.

Let’s face it: songs stick in the mind in a way that the spoken word does not. And that means that in our daily lives we can recall truth when it is contained in a song. For example, I still sing the old chorus “For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace…” when I’m trying to remember Galatians 5!

This fact was not lost on great preachers of the past. For Luther, Newton and Wesley, the central message of their songs was the truth they were preaching in their sermons. In fact, William booth and others changed the words to popular secular songs of the day in order to better fix biblical truth in the minds of believer and unbeliever alike.

This is part 2 in a series of thoughts on Does it matter what we sing? More coming soon…