Worship

In Christ Alone – Keith & Kristyn Getty

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless Babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save

‘Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From a life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man
Could ever pluck me from His hand
‘Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I stand

God’s Own Fool

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

It seems I’ve imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God’s Holy wisdom is foolish to men
He must have seemed out of His mind

For even His family said He was mad
And the priests said a demon’s to blame
But God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane

Chorus:

When we in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
When we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
And so we follow God’s own fool
For only the foolish can tell-
Believe the unbelievable
And come be a fool as well

So come lose your life for a carpenter’s son
For a madman who died for a dream
And you’ll have the faith His first followers had
And you’ll feel the weight of the beam
So surrender the hunger to say you must know
Have the courage to say “I believe”
For the power of paradox opens your eyes
And blinds those who say they can see

Chorus:

When we in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
When we in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
So we follow God’s own Fool, For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable, And come be a fool as well

Come Worship the Lord

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Come, worship the Lord
For we are His people, the flock that He shepherds
Aleluia

Come, let us sing to the Lord
And shout with joy to the Rock who saves us
Let us come with thanksgiving
And sing joyful songs to the Lord

The Lord is God, a mighty God
The great King o’er all the gods
He holds in His hands the depths of the earth
And the highest mountains as well
He made the sea; it belongs now to Him
The dry land, too, was formed by His hand

So…

Come, let us bow down in worship
Bending the knee before the Lord our Maker
For we are His people
We are the flock that He shepherds

So…

Aleluia, Aleluia

The Gospel of Mark by Max McLean

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

If you have not seen the Bible brought to life through one of Max McLean‘s performances you have missed out. I first saw him when he came to chapel while I was a student at Reformed Theological Seminary. McLean is an acclaimed thespian who lends his substantial talents to verbatim oral interpretation of Books of the Bible, among other roles.

I learned from Justin Taylor that McLean’s live portrayal of John Mark, author of the Gospel of Mark, from the show run last year in the Chicago Theatre District, is now available on DVD.  I also leaned that it is available free online.

Click the chapters and watch McLean bring the Gospel of Mark to life, word-for-word:

Try reading along to dramatize your Devotional time for several days.

Things We Leave Behind

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

There sits Simon foolish and wise
Proudly he’s tending his nets
Jesus calls and the boat drifts away
All that he owns he forgets

More than the nets he abandoned that day
He found that his pride was soon fading away

It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find
From the things we leave behind

Matthew was mindful of taking the tax
Pressing the people to pay
Hearing the call he responded in faith
And followed the light and the way

Leaving the people so puzzled he found
The greed in his heart was no longer around

Every heart needs to be set free
From possessions that press in so tight
Freedom is not found in the things that we own
It’s the power to do what is right

With Jesus our only possession
Giving becomes our delight
We can’t imagine the freedom we find
From the things we leave behind

We show a love for the world in our lives
Worshipping goods we possess
Jesus said lay all your treasures aside
And love God above all the rest

When we say no to the things of the world
We open our hearts to the love of the Lord

Song by:

Worship is the Proper Response

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so. This side of the Fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provisions that God has graciously made. While all true worship is God-centered, Christian worship is no less Christ-centered. Empowered by the Spirit and in line with the stipulations of the new covenant, it manifests itself in all our living, finding its impulse in the gospel, which restores our relationship with our Redeemer-God and therefore also with our fellow image-bearers, our co-worshippers. Such worship therefore manifests itself both in adoration and action, both in the individual believer and in corporate worship, which is worship offered up in the context of the body of believers, who strive to align all the forms of the devout ascription of all worth to God with the panoply of new covenant mandates and examples that bring to fulfillment the glories of antecedent revelation and anticipate the consummation.

~ D.A. Carson, in Worship By the Book

Me Worship

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

The foolishness caricatured in this video probably needs no comment. It touches on what is perhaps the most common plague of American Evangelicalism: the notion that life (and Church)  is all about me – what I like, what I want, etc. 

God seems to have other ideas. In Isaiah 48.11 God says:

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.
       How can I let myself be defamed?
       I will not yield my glory to another.

This problem may nowhere be more evident than in the worship wars that erupt in many congregations. What might worship be like if our primary concern was God’s glory? If we primarily asked ourselves what God enjoys?

Power of the Cross

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Oh, to see the dawn of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.

CHORUS:

This, the pow’r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh, to see the pain written on your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev’ry bitter thought, Ev’ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees; Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two, Dead are raised to life;
“Finished!” the vict’ry cry.

Oh, to see my name written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through your selfless love.

FINAL CHORUS:

This, the pow’r of the cross:
Son of God—slain for us.
What a love! What a cost!
We stand forgiven at the cross.