songs
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label songs. Show all posts

Recommended Resource: “The Songs of Jesus”


Recommended Resource: “The Songs of Jesus” by Tim and Kathy Keller




I can’t recommend enough the book “The Songs of Jesus” by Tim and Kathy Keller. For myself, it has helped shaped my prayers, my affections, and drawn me closer to God.  The book is structured as a 365 day devotional which takes you through all the Psalms roughly 5-7 verses per day. There is a short reflection on the verses as well as a prayer that is shaped by the content of the Psalm. I strongly encourage you to pick up this resource and do it with your family, with your spouse, or for your own time with the Lord. 

You can find out more information about this book at http://www.timothykeller.com/books/the-songs-of-jesus

Here is an excerpt from the introduction:
The psalms lead us to do what the psalmists do—to commit ourselves to God through pledges and promises, to depend on God through petition and expressions of acceptance, to seek comfort in God through lament and complaint, to find mercy from God through confession and repentance, to gain new wisdom and perspective from God through meditation, remembrance, and reflection.
 
The psalms also help us see God—God not as we wish or hope him to be but as he actually reveals himself. The descriptions of God in the Psalter are rich beyond human invention. He is more holy, more wise, more fearsome, more tender and loving than we would ever imagine him to be. The psalms fire our imaginations into new realms yet guide them toward the God who actually exists. This brings a reality to our prayer lives that nothing else can. “Left to ourselves, we will pray to some god who speaks what we like hearing, or to the part of God we manage to understand. But what is critical is that we speak to the God who speaks to us, and to everything that he speaks to us. . . .  What is essential in prayer is not that we learn to express ourselves, but that we learn to answer God.”7
Most of all the psalms, read in light of the entire Bible, bring us to Jesus. The psalms were Jesus’s songbook. The hymn that Jesus sang at the Passover meal (Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26) would have been the Great Hallel, Psalms 113–118. Indeed, there is every reason to assume that Jesus would have sung all the psalms, constantly, throughout his life, so that he knew them by heart. It is the book of the Bible that he quotes more than any other. But the psalms were not simply sung by Jesus; they also are about him, as we will see throughout this volume. The psalms are, then, indeed the songs of Jesus.
Read More

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

I love finding out the stories behind the songs we sing in corporate worship and spending time studying the deep truths in them. "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" is filled with so many great truths that are worth meditating on this week. This article does a great job breaking down the content of this great hymn!

In Christ,
Brandon H.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

April 26, 2015 | Marshall Segal 

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17)

 In 1743, when Robert Robinson was just eight years old, he lost his father. Angry, bitter, and fatherless, Robert rebelled in excess through his teenage years — drinking, gambling, and causing trouble. But God broke into his heart through the gospel preaching of George Whitefield. Several years later he had followed the Lord into ministry and was later inspired to write Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.

Every Good Gift

God’s amazing grace flows to us through Jesus, not only in our salvation, but in every single good gift we receive from his hand. James writes, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

Our gracious and sovereign God never changes, and he loves to shower goodness on his undeserving children. His grace takes many shapes in our lives — people, safety, health, insight, provision, large and small — and they’re all from God’s good hand.

We Cannot Proclaim It Well

Jesus sought us when we were strangers, while we were wandering — literally fleeing — from the fold of God. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God’s grace did not wait for us to want him. No, he came to us in the midst of our mutiny against him and won our life and affections by the cleansing blood of his Son. With Robinson, we “cannot proclaim it well.” We will never be able to adequately give voice to the victory we’ve received.

A Goodness That Keeps Us

And the victory doesn’t end with our conversion. Do you feel yourself drifting or wandering in your walk with God? Do the temptations feel too strong? Or the distractions too compelling? Has life become so busy you can’t find time for him? The good news is that all those whom God has called to himself by grace, he is daily keeping in that same grace until he brings them home. Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to Thee. God promises to seal and finish what he’s begun in our heart and life (Philippians 1:6).

Even when we feel weakest, God is demonstrating his perfect power by causing our faith to persevere until the very end. “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13–14). The inheritance is ours in Christ, waiting secure for us in glory. And it is secure because the Fount of every blessing, by his Spirit, will make sure you are found with him where he is.

A Song Worth Singing Forever

As we anticipate that day when freed from sinning we will see him face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12), we give him all glory for every gift of faith and blessing. The beauty of our purity in his presence will sing his praise forever. And in this life, in our worship together, we can sing that song to our Savior and Provider for as many days as he gives us here.

Come, thou Fount, return to receive your ransomed people to their heavenly home and happiness.


Reprinted from Desiring God. Copyright 2016 Marshall Segal Staff writer, desiringGod.org. Find the original article here at http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/come-thou-fount-of-every-blessing.
Read More

Psalms - Jesus’ songbook

Kindergarten graduation for Joshua, Jessica, and Brandon Hochstetler.
I don’t remember much when I was five, but one thing I do remember was my kindergarten graduation. I remember putting on my extremely large white graduation robe, the nervousness of speaking in front of my family and friends, and how much fun it was to play with the tassel on my cap. In preparation for the graduation, I had to do a lot of memorizing. There were a few songs that I vaguely remember memorizing and I remember memorizing the poem “What Can I Give Him”. There is one thing that stood out from this graduation that has stuck with me ever since, and that was memorizing Psalm 23. As a five year old, I was extremely nervous about reciting the Psalm, but I had gone over it so many times. I remember putting the Psalm to music and rehearsing it over and over again. So, with an extremely high and "chipmunk like” voice, I quoted all of Psalms 23 in front of all those people and didn’t even mess up!

Twenty years later, I have never forgotten that Psalm. It has often been a source of encouragement to me when going through difficult times. For me, and I can assume that for many of you, the Psalms hold a special place in your heart. The reason for this is that the Psalms were not written just for theological instruction; "they were written to be prayed, recited, and sung- to be done, not merely read.” There is a certain poetic nature to the Psalms that penetrates deeper than mere theological facts. The Psalms help us see God in a rich and real life way. They lead us to commitment and not just understanding about God, but having a relationship with Him. When read in the context of the entire Bible, the Psalms point us to Jesus. The Psalms were, in a way, Jesus’ songbook. Even more significantly, Jesus not only sang and recited the Psalms, they were about Him.

With the understanding of why the Psalms were written, we should be challenged to included the Psalms in our daily life as Christians. We have examples going back to the Israelites of how they were used. The Psalms were the hymnbook for the public worship of God in ancient Israel (I Chronicles 16:8-36). The early Christians sang and prayed the Psalms (Colossians 3:16; I Corinthians 14:26). Theologians and and church leaders have always advocated that Psalms should be used and reused in the Christian’s daily life.

I have been challenged this week to make the Psalms a daily part of my life. I don’t want to just read the Psalms. I want to mediate on them, sing through them, memorize them, pray them, and commit to acting out on the truths they convey. I have included a few resources that I have used in helping to do this. I believe it is Biblical and important to do this. As Timothy Keller says, “Psalms, then, are not just a matchless primer of teaching but a medicine chest for the heart and the best possible guide for practical living.”

Resources: “The Songs of Jesus”: A year of Daily Devotions in the Psalms by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller.

Psalm Songs, Vol. 1 by The Corner Room. https://open.spotify.com/album/4yYPJ5dAnpHHpSuuM4BwEC

In Christ,
Brandon H.
Read More
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)