The Blessing – God and Chris Brown, Cody Carnes, Kari Jobe and Steven Furtick

 

This one involved a lot of teamwork, across many centuries, and was refreshed by another team of musicians several millennia later. The scene was the Desert of Sinai (see satellite image here), and the one who initiated “The Blessing” was God, of course. He is the source of all blessings, is He not? He wanted to lift His people into a trust relationship with Himself, as they were preparing to enter a land some 3,500 years ago, underscoring His deliverance of this people from bondage and into a covenant that He had already extended to them. Blessing, His presence, His favor, and a peace that He was set to guarantee them. And so, Moses was directed to convey the message to his brother Aaron and Aaron’s sons, who had the blessed task of reporting this happy news to the masses. Corollaries to this covenant would be narrated orally unto generation-upon-generation in the succeeding 1,500 years, with one overarching message: God and the blessings of His presence are still with you. What four 21^st Century musical artists did in 2020 was to repeat this, with a musical style that emphasizes this message’s recurring nature. Imagine singing with all those generations who’ve already been blessed by Him, and spur on all those generations who will be blessed by Him in the future!

 

Yes, that’s right. If you notice, when you hear or sing ‘The Blessing’, that there is an awful lot of repetition in its words, you’re right. It’s just a phenomenon that speaks of the history of the words that Chris Brown, Cody Carnes, Kari Jobe, and Steven Furtick drew upon during the song’s development session. It was during a Thursday when the four were trying to hear what God was saying to them, and from what you and I can see in the lyrics, they heard Him over and over again through their bibles. God communicated something unique in the initial Sinai Desert blessing (Numbers 6:24-26). This benediction’s promise for the people of a thousand generations (Exodus 20:6 [God] and Deuteronomy 7:9 [Moses]) – that’s at least 20,000 years, approximately, wow! – and its transmission to this people’s descendants via so many other testifiers (like David, Solomon, Paul, and other anonymous writers in numerous books of the bible), really makes credible another emphasized point in the lyrics: the omnipresence of the great I AM and His indwelling Spirit (indicated in various scriptures – see link below to discussion of the song’s lyrics), in people and therefore in the writings they’ve contributed to the holy scriptures. From what Chris, Cody, Kari, and Steven have said, the Thursday writing session and the premier of the song a mere three days later in a church in Ballantyne, North Carolina just showed how much people in our world are thirsting for encouragement, direct from God Himself through their own bibles. Chris calls the song ‘relentless’ in its delivery of the message. It’s as if the four writers captured a vision of something in their North Carolina studio, and tried to imagine God’s voice carrying the tune throughout the 175 generations (3,500 years) since it was first hummed in His great heart. Do you think He’ll ever tire of telling us ‘I love you’?

 

God’s pledge was for ‘1,000 generations’, so it’s fair to say that you and I will be gone a pretty long time when that pledge is fully matured, assuming He meant literally 20,000 years when He first spoke those words. Will He allow you and me to someday appreciate His love nature completely, as He continues to draw people to Himself across the years yet to come? Only He can answer that, though He’s promised us we will see Him in all His glory. How many believers will His forbearance in all that projected time allow Him to receive unto Himself? Another unknown, at least to us here and now. No covenant ever made has come close to the one He’s pledged. I’m not a math major, but it would be eye-popping to discover what the final numbers are at the end of all this. Ready to meet the One who’s counting up the data?! Make sure you are in His Excel sheet.   

 

Song story is here: https://www.thechristianbeat.org/kari-jobe-cody-carnes-and-elevation-worship-release-the-blessing-live/

 

See here for discussion of the song’s lyrics: https://www.thebereantest.com/elevation-worship-feat-cody-carnes-kari-jobe-the-blessing

 

See here for information on the Sinai Desert-Peninsula: Sinai Peninsula - Wikipedia

 

See here for information on Mount Sinai: Mount Sinai (Bible) - Wikipedia

 

Public Domain status of the satellite view of Sinai Peninsula: The image is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)

The Greatest Commands -- John, Paul, Moses, God

These composers had been exposed to something, or had become so much like what they wrote, that their words rang with an authenticity previously unheard. Consider the personal history of some of these guys, and you might have had reason to scoff if you’d heard them verbalize “The Greatest Commands” – to love, as if with a godly love. They didn’t really collaborate on the song, as far as we know, but their messages struck a common chord. A single source makes this possible, even for those of us who are multiple millennia beyond their era.

Let’s see how each of the writers arrived at the words he composed. John was the ‘beloved Apostle’, thus he wrote about behavior he’d experienced first-hand. No one might have said his expression of love was very winsome when he and his brother James walked with Jesus. They were the ones who thought they deserved more of His favor than the other Apostles (Matthew 20:20-23), and who’d wanted to call down fire on unfriendly Samaritans (Luke 9:51-54). Yeh, this was a son of thunder, not love, at that time. Yet, when he wrote as a much older man to a group that was attracted to Gnosticism, a false spiritualism, the wizened John told them the basics of true spiritualism – love (1 John 4:7-8). Love sacrificially. John must have seen a lot in that group that showed they’d twisted this love into something immoral. John’s was a message of correction. So was Paul’s, some thirty years before John’s ode to love.  This middle-aged Paul was the same guy who’d chased, persecuted, and had had Christians killed less than two decades earlier (Acts 8:1-3). Whatever happened to him, it must have been radical, right? The Corinthians (1 Corinthians 13) he addressed had lots of issues, not the least of which were squabbles among themselves, a debilitating environment for God-centered folks. Unity was impossible among such a people. Paul said God’s nature was the most perfect, a patient, resilient, trusting devotion (v. 7). But, perhaps the operative word in Paul’s thoughts is ‘all’. This Pharisee among Pharisees had all the answers, once. But the Love-God encompasses everything, not blowing up everything in His path, but swallowing it and transforming it. That rather echoes what preceded these two 1^st Century composers (John and Paul), when a people prepared to enter where God had led them. Moses gave them the words (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), but it was really God’s thoughts he mouthed, and which were repeated some 1,500 years later in the two apostles’ generation. Love Him with everything you have.

Could God be laughed off as insincere, too, in matters of love? After all, He’s the one who killed an army to preserve His chosen people (Exodus 14). A God of love, hah!  But, notice His patience, watch His plan develop, and see if you can fathom how He allowed Jesus to make Himself known, and then be killed. God might seem inscrutable, but for Jesus. He made me in His image, and He didn’t stay distant. Instead, He chose to be human like me. Conquer death, de-fang this most fundamental truth of my being. Love cancels out all the minus signs. Is that great or what!

There is no source for the song story, but for background on the song,  see the New International Version Study Bible, general editor Kenneth Barker, 1985, copyright The Zondervan Corporation, for notes on Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 1-5, and other scriptures therein.