Great is the Lord Almighty -- Dennis Jernigan

This 59-year old calls Muskogee his home in Oklahoma (see the map here) currently, so that might have been where Dennis Jernigan first penned the words that he still often sings today, nearly 30 years after he wrote them. Dennis had a lot of great reasons to exclaim that “Great Is the Lord Almighty” in 1991 as a 32-year old. By the time he wrote the words, Dennis had begun to hear lots of stories – perhaps many from people who could not have imagined that they would be sharing them – as a result of his own example. Jernigan often describes himself as a ‘reborn’ person, a ‘new creation’, and perhaps that’s what he imagined a group many centuries earlier might have thought about themselves, as conquerors rather than as beaten-down reform projects. Get in touch with these old biblical stories, he says, and understand He’s still the Almighty in our century.

Dennis doesn’t share too many precise details about how each of the more than 2,000 songs he’s written have evolved since his ‘rebirth’ in the early 1980s, but knowing his very personal redemption story helps contextualize most of what he’s composed since that time. Freedom is another very key word that Dennis emboldens in his testimonial (see website link below), using it as an umbrella to cover all that has happened over the last few decades. In short, Dennis’s life has been an about-face from the homosexual lifestyle that he was in until the early 1980s. A 1981 concert and a close friend’s help at the same time helped Dennis begin the process of turning around, a progression that culminated in his marriage to his wife Melinda in 1983 and the beginning of a life with her and the nine children they would eventually have together. He might have said ‘Great is the Lord Almighty’ right then, but that moment would actually happen several years later, after Dennis began sharing his ‘rebirth’ in church settings. Was it the ensuing events that perhaps inspired Dennis to call out to the Almighty musically? He relates that many people confessed their own hurts and struggles as he made himself vulnerable beginning in 1988. A community had been hidden, but now were openly calling upon the same Almighty, in a way that they witnessed Dennis model for them. Dennis’ verses in ‘Great Is the Lord Almighty’, in a parallel way, speak of a people needing their Almighty at the Red Sea, at ‘the brink’ (v.1), and while marching around Jericho in the Promised Land (v.2). You can hear Dennis personalize his redemptive state in the words ‘…since He took my blame’ (v.3), and for others like him who were formerly ‘…dying and lost in their sin’. Proclaiming Him as the Almighty and seeing His redemption transform yourself and scores, even hundreds of people, would be something to witness! That’s where Dennis was in 1991.  
     

Dennis’ other words in ‘Great…Almighty’ are in the present tense, emphasizing that this God is still busy today re-birthing people. ‘He is a mighty God’, ‘great is the Lord Almighty’, Jernigan asserts repeatedly in the song. He’s not finished with you and me, including especially if you feel as damaged as Dennis did in 1981. You and I can be ‘lifting up a mighty joyful sound’, the same way an ancient generation did, and which is related in a bestselling book we can all read – the bible. It’s not just book stuff, however. Dennis is living proof.  

Hear a recording and see all the words of the song here: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=great+is+the+lord+almighty

See testimony of author here: https://www.dennisjernigan.com/djs-story

See biography of author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Jernigan

And, see this book:  Giant Killers: Crushing Strongholds , Securing Freedom in Your Life, by Dennis Jernigan. WaterBrook Press, 2005.