It happens to all of us…when we just can’t talk to the Lord—we’re stuck. The words won’t come.
Or maybe they don’t come out right.
Try giving thanks—for anything.
Or petition the Lord for something.
Or complain!
Speak God’s Word back to him with a favorite scripture verse. That often morphs into joyous prayer, or praise, or worship.
I sing worship music when I get stuck, but sometimes even those well loved words get lost. Here is THE song that works every time—just a short four lines—simple, direct, easy to sing, easy to remember, and filled to capacity with Who He Is.
The Gospel Song
Sovereign Grace Music
Holy God in love became
Perfect Man to bear my blame
On that cross He took my sin
By His death I live again.
The reason this is my ‘go-to’ song:
Holy God—the Almighty, the One who created everything we see, touch, smell, hear, taste. Who created angels and lions and rhinoceros and elephants, mountains, and oceans, and streams. He Who can calm the raging sea, Who will ride a white horse in sight of the entire planet. He Who’s voice rolls like thunder. Omniscient. Omnipresent…that Holy God…
In love—not romantic love, not brotherly love felt between believers, not family love, either—where blood is thicker than water. No. GOD love. Agape—the Almighty love of His beloved creation—humankind. Despite failing in sin, He loved us as He…
Became—The Son Who chose to leave His home—a place of beauty and splendor far beyond our ability to imagine, to change form for us into…
Perfect Man—On earth, Jesus was fully God—capable of performing as Son of God in human form New Testament supernatural healings—lameness, blindness, bleeding—casting out (legions of) demons, bringing the dead back to life. He had Peter walk on water. He multiplied food and turned water to wine. He was without sin—the only perfect man to ever walk the earth. And Jesus was fully human—experiencing pain, anger, joy, suffering, love. Jesus knew WHY He needed to come to earth. He KNEW the consequences of His choice. Christ knew He would have to endure His sacrificial death as a MAN…
To bear—the worst punishment. First multiple beatings, where He was bound in ropes and chains, followed by a flogging so severe His skin was flayed from muscle and bone—not just on His back, but also His chest, stomach, legs, buttocks, neck, arms, and shoulders. While suffering from these wounds, some Roman guards pressed thorns into his scalp as a Crown. The next day His robes were ripped from His wounds in front of a huge crowd. A crowd who, when given the choice, chose to save the murderer Barabbas from death, instead of Jesus. Remember, just one week prior, this same crowd worshiped Jesus as He rode a colt into Jerusalem. He bore this for…
My blame—MINE, me personally, because I’m a sinner, because I had no other way back to God, except through the sacrificial choice made by this Perfect Man-God to leave His home and come to earth to die for me. But not just me—Jesus died for mankind—everyone—regardless of their sin. Difficult to grasp. He died for ANYONE who chooses Him over the world, over themselves, over pride, ego, or for some other reason…
On that cross—the Roman Empire’s choice, reserved for the worse criminals—slow, excruciating, humiliating, suffocation after three spikes are driven between the bones of the hands and ankles—often after dislocating the shoulders to fit the spikes into the pre-drilled holes. No Roman soldier wanted to pound a spike into flesh and wood… Driving spikes into hardwood was too much work, when they were crucifying a half dozen, to a dozen men a day.
He took—willingly, 100% ALL of…
My sin—and yours, and the murderer’s, and the liar’s, and the cheat’s, and the thief’s, and the drunkards, and the addicts, and the __(fill in the blank) from the time of Adam to the time Christ returns again. Every single person who ever lived, multiplied by the number of sins they commit is a number we cannot fathom. Intentional, plus unintentional sin. Sin in the past, sin happening right now, sin that will occur in the future. Sinful actions AND sinful thoughts. Spoken and unspoken. Acted upon and not acted upon—it’s all sin to God and God hates sin. In fact, God hates sin so much that just before Jesus died, God looked upon His once-perfect and innocent, but now sin-filled Son and turned away—it was too much! The Father looked upon His Son and removed Himself from Jesus, the same way He removes Himself from anyone who refuses His Son. No one can get to God, no one can make it through the Great White Throne Judgement, or live eternally with God in His perfect kingdom, if we sin. And since all of us do, our only chance is to chose the One who bridged the sin chasm for us by sacrificing Himself. That One and only Perfect Man NEVER sinned, but agreed to take upon Himself all of humanity’s sin, every ugly, harmful, deceitful, nasty, incorrigible sin in all its entirety, all its forms. A burden no ordinary man could withstand. And when Christ died, He died fully and completely alone. He did this for us—without hesitation—sacrificially, as The Lamb, and…
By His death—At 33 years old, this completely innocent Man stepped into the courtroom—before His Father, the Judge—and took upon Himself, our capital death penalty punishment. But there’s more…The Son of Man laid in a tomb, in darkness, for three days, while the Son of God went into the bowels of Hell to take back the keys of death. By dying Christ defeated and destroyed death for His followers FOREVER—giving us eternal LIFE instead. Satan, nor his legions, nor anyone else, can remove us from the Son of God. We are HIS! Along with all that, while Jesus was down there, He confronted Satan and proved one last thing—that taking the burden of our sin might have been too great for the Son of Man, but as the Son of God He cannot be defeated. Not in life. Not in death. Jesus cannot lose, because the Father gave Him the same resurrection power Jesus had when He raised the dead! Jesus rose up out of that grave and transformed the once-dead Son of Man body into the Son of God. He remained on earth for a time, showing Himself, proving Who He was, what He could do, what He promises He will do for us when He transforms our dead bodies into eternal living bodies. Yes, Christ’s believers will experience our current body’s first death out of this world (unless we’re Raptured), but we will never experience what is called the second death. We will be given transformed bodies just like His, so that…
I (WE!) live again.
The most powerful four lines of lyrics ever written.
AMEN!