Faith Meets World

Reflections on faith in a messed-up but beautiful world

Category: Worship (Page 3 of 3)

The treasure of Jesus

To kick off the working week, I thought I’d share with you one of my favourite Steven Curtis Chapman songs. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a fan of SCC or not – just close your eyes, listen, and let a prayer rise from your heart.

What can I do
How can I live
To show my world
The treasure of Jesus

What will it take
What could I give
So they can know
The treasure He is

If I can sing
Let my songs be full of His glory
If I can speak
Let my words be full of His grace

If I should live or die
Let me be found pursuing this prize
The One that alone satisfies
The treasure of Jesus

Monday morning worship

Transformed by worship

Worship transforms humans, all of us, all the time, since you become like what you worship: those who worship money, power or sex have their characters formed by those strange powers, so that little by little the money-worshipper sees and experiences the world in terms of financial opportunities or dangers, the power-hungry person sees and experiences the world and other humans in terms of chances to gain power or threats to existing power, and the sex-worshipper sees the world in terms of possible conquests (that word is interesting in itself) or rivals. Those who consciously and deliberately choose not to worship those gods still have a range of others to select from, each of which will be character-forming in various ways. And, somewhere in the middle of this range, we find the worship of God who was believed, by some people in the middle of the first century, to have revealed himself uniquely and decisively in a man called Jesus.

— N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God

A question: what are you worshipping, and how is it forming your character?

A Sunday morning hymn

I love a good hymn. And one of the first hymns I was introduced to after becoming a follower of Jesus at age 14 was Holy, Holy, Holy, sung by the incomparable Keith Green.

Listen with me, and let your heart sing.

A song for Sunday morning

This morning, I thought I’d share a classic song by probably my favourite ever Christian singer-songwriter. Many different versions of this song have been recorded over the years, but in my not humble opinion, none comes close to the original. Enjoy. And worship.

A Sunday morning hymn

On this Sunday morning, I offer you a contemporary arrangement of one of my favourite hymns of all time. I can’t read or sing these words without my spirit being lifted up to God. This is great, heart-stirring worship to a great and most worthy God.

(And guess what? It wasn’t written in the last few years by Hillsong, Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman or Jesus Culture!)

Why it matters what we sing

At a recent church service, we sang the chorus of well-known contemporary worship song The Anthem by Planetshakers (video below). In case you’re not familiar with it, the words are as follows:

Hallelujah, You have won the victory
Hallelujah, You have won it all for me
Death could not hold You down
You are the risen King
Seated in majesty
You are the risen King

In many ways it’s a great song, declaring Jesus’ victory over death and his eternal reign in glory, all set to a rousing tune that can stir a congregation to passionate corporate worship. But there’s one thing in this song that bothers me. Can you guess what it is?

Read More

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