Tuesday 12 May 2009

Singing Love Songs......

On Friday night at our praise team we sang the awesome song 'Hear these praises from a grateful heart.' This song ends with the line 'love you so much, Jesus, love you so much.' When we finished it all that was going through my head was the phrase of another song 'a love song to Jesus.' It kinda stuck with me all of Saturday and then on Sunday we sang the whole song again. There was a moment on Sunday in that service where it turned from us loving and adoring Jesus to sensing His love and His passion and His presence - it was awesome and words are really not enough to explain it. But as we stood singing love songs to the Lord I could hear this voice saying 'who is singing louder?' This question reminded me of that awesome passage from Zephaniah 3:17 where it says

"The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing."

That phrase "He will rejoice over you with singing." Can you believe that the awesome creator of this Universe rejoices over us, delights in us! So it got me thinking and I looked the phrase up in other versions! Check this out:-

delight you with his songs (MSG)
he will joy over thee with singing (American Standard)
he will sing and be joyful about you (New Century Version)
He celebrates and sings because of you (Contemporary English Version

but then I checked the Amplified Version and this is worth the whole verse, it staggered me:-

"The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior, who saves!
He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest, in silent satisfaction,
and in His love He will be silent and make no mention of past sins,
or even recall them; He will exult over you with singing."


My conversation with God on Sunday morning went something like this:-
'Singing I love you Lord, I love you.'
'Who's singing louder?'
'What do you mean?'
'You sing with the vocal chords I have given you, but I rejoice over you with singing.'
'Over me Lord? But why? Look at this and this and this and this (list millions of faults and mistakes!)'
'I'm God - do I need a reason?'
'Well - no!'
'So who is singing louder?'

Words failed me at this point and all I could hear was that song resounding my head whose chorus goes like this:-
'Can you hear Him singing? I love you, I love you. Can you hear Him calling I want you I have chosen you to be mine?

Later I looked up the whole song - (sorry I can't find it on youtube) but the words are below as I read them I simply had to pray yet again 'Lord take this from my head to my heart..........'

JESUS LOVES THE CHURCH,
He gave Himself for His bride.
He knows what we will be,
A conquering army,
An unblemished people.
We're accepted, we're forgiven,
We're united with Him;
Not rejected, not forgotten,
Not abandoned in sin.

Can you hear Him singing,
'I love you, I love you'?
Can you hear Him calling,
'I want you, I have chosen you to be Mine'?

Jesus loves the church,
His passion through the ages.
Hell will not prevail.He builds us together,
A living temple.
We're accepted, we're forgiven,
We're united with Him;
Not rejected, not forgotten,
Not abandoned in sin

Mike Sandeman

2 comments:

The Lewis Family said...

Just popping in to say 'hi' and that I have enjoyed your recent writing's. I appreciate how open you are and I understand the tears. Not that I have totally walked in your shoes. . . But each of us go through valleys where tears are a familiar partner. For me it seemed a combination of sorrow and pain as well as healing and heart softening and vulnerability. It was like He allowed me to go through painful circumstances to have the privelege of tasting His heart for others. . . If that makes sense. Sometimes it was just plain sorrow for myself, sometimes it was tears for no rational reason. Like God was reaching into the deepest recesses of my being and healing things that had been festering there for years that I had no clue about. And all I could do was weep. . . It did come to an eventual end and usually that end couldn't come too soon. But He is healing, He can't not. It's his very nature. Provided we submit to the surgeons knife. . . That is the brilliant part of it all. I have shared parts of my story on my blog recently and I intend to continue my story to the present day, one inspired day. . . You might find it amusing.

Nick Cameron said...

Hey - thanks for the encouragement!
Needed that today!
Nick