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.)

Let God Arise -- Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, Jesse Reeves

 

He remembers the time, even the phrases the speaker used to make his point. Chris Tomlin was in Hawaii early in the 21^st Century when he heard a preacher repeat the words -- “Let God Arise” – first spoken by God’s leader in a wilderness, and then remembered by a psalmist and king centuries later. So, it was no accident that Chris should find this three-word phrase so meaningful and moving, something that spurred on millions of people some 3,400 years earlier. God made Himself evident, and He called followers to obedience, offering them His own light and a leader whose face would shine when He descended from a mountain conference with Him. He’d already done so many rousing wonders – did He really need to offer more proof of His identity, power, and authority? Perhaps God knew songs would be necessary to preserve these moments, and so the story and its accompanying words entered the spirit of poets like David and Chris, and all of us who will listen.

 

Chris Tomlin leaned on the words and collaboration of three of his contemporaries, as well as Moses and the poet-king David, to write ‘Let God Arise’. Chris shares when he was backstage at a conference in Hawaii where Jim Cymbala was speaking. The words Jim spoke were brief but had the desired impact, at least for one hearer – Chris Tomlin. In Jim’s words -- ‘we’re having these conferences, trying to build this church as if God were dead, as if He needs our help. The truth is, let God arise, and His enemies be scattered.‘ It was a ‘wow’ moment for Chris, who knew immediately that he wanted to write a song, and so he scribbled that part of Psalm 68 (he mistakenly says Psalm 61 in the video interview) on a piece of paper, not realizing at the time what its origin was. He says it moved him like a guy who might be watching the movie Braveheart, and hearing William Wallace issue the challenge to his army as they stood before the enemy. He thought the song he would write should be consistent with the psalm’s emotive power, and therefore accompanied by music that was ‘rowdy’, not some ‘pretty little’ tune. It’s a ‘shout it out’ song, Chris says. Thus, that helps explain the raucous beat as you hear Chris and his cohorts perform the song, lauding the Almighty and his works. This people that Moses was leading in the wilderness following their orders from God Himself – their commander-in-chief – was a people prone to stubbornness and complaining. Moses had to urge them on each day with the title words of the song Chris would write over three millennia later (Numbers 10:35), the same words that David would use (in Psalm 68) to stimulate God’s people of his own era, 400-500 years later (around 1,000 B.C.). Apparently, Chris also leaned on the advice and contributions of two others of his own time, Ed Cash and Jesse Reeves, to fashion the words for ‘Let God Arise’. God’s directives still flow through countless believers, even today.  

 

Echoes of Moses and David reverberate in ‘Let God Arise’, the 21^st Century rendition of this wilderness and later-Temple worship song. Verses 1, 20, and 33 of David’s psalm remind us of Him, and how we carry on the devotion to this God. Chris, Ed, and Jesse add some other words that speak of God’s great personage, and His powerful acts on behalf of His people. ‘Our God… saves!’ There’s so much more that they tell us of Him, but saving power seems like one of the underscored points of this song. Just let Him loose – as if we had any ability to confine Him! – and watch Him arise and conquer. Saving us is just a derivative effect of who He is. I’m ready to go upwards with Him. You too?

 

The primary author shares the story in this 4/14/2010 video: https://www.praisecharts.com/blog/chris-tomlin-shares-song-let-god-arise/