Holy Forever -- Chris Tomlin, Phil Wickham, Brian Johnson, Jenn Johnson, Jason Ingram

 

A thousand generations, and the angels – those are phrases that really persuade the reader to use one’s imagination, because there’s just no way that any mortal has seen both of these, or anything approaching what these phrases challenge you and me to exclaim. (See the 19^th Century artwork -- Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean -- by Gustave Dore here, showing lots and lots of angels.) That is the impression that Chris Tomlin and his four collaborators -- Phil Wickham, Brian Johnson, Jenn Johnson, Jason Ingram – want us to consider in “Holy Forever”. A ‘piece of Heaven’ is what Chris says he was trying to portray with the lyrics, something he and the others must have been inspired to pursue as they read John’s Revelation or what the great prophet Isaiah (chapter 6) saw. It means taking one’s own ego and motivations out of the picture, and letting the awesome scenery drive you prostrate. Chris points out what John has already told us: this worship John foresaw will be forever. Hard to picture, right? Chris and company invite us to try, as a warmup for what’s to come.

 

God declares six times through various authors in the Old Testament that He will lavish His ‘unfailing love’ or stand by ‘His covenant’ to a thousand generations. And, how many other times do His angels make their presence known in the same writings? Over 100 times (precisely 111 times, according to the New Living Translation) -- including 24 times in Revelation alone, the most of any of the bible’s 66 books – do the writers mention these awesome beings who are God’s servants. And, the sight of these breathtaking groups is surpassed only by the vision of God Himself. Thus, that brief synopsis really sums up what these five 21^st Century songwriters would have us to see – God supreme, and those two groups of beings worshipping Him. Chris describes how he thinks of songs in two different categories – some that ask God to help us, to ‘rescue me’ with His grace; and then others that are more about ‘transcendence’, like Holy Forever’, that compel the believer ‘…to get on my face’. That’s what’s happening in Revelation. Just consider Revelation 5:11 -- Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders. Or, Revelation 7:11 -- And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living beings. And they fell before the throne with their faces to the ground and worshiped God. Revelation 14:6 helps us see it all another way -- And I saw another angel flying through the sky, carrying the eternal Good News to proclaim to the people who belong to this world—to every nation, tribe, language, and people.

 

Do you think John had goosebumps while on Patmos? Reading those passages should help each of us get just a little of that sensation. Think what’ll it be like when you and I see it close-up, no imagination necessary. Jenn Johnson says the song she and the four others penned is about being part of ‘…our ultimate victory’. We won’t just be watching. We’re among His people, the ones with whom He wants to be forever. Imagine for a moment that it’s like you have a ticket to the most important sporting event in history, and you didn’t pay for it. Someone else dipped into His treasury and paid for your entry into that venue. His is the ‘highest’, the ‘greatest’, ‘above all’, so isn’t that enough reason to sing this ‘song of ages’, the one that Chris, Phil, Brian, Jenn, and Jason expect to be shouting? You don’t have the right voice, you say? I don’t either, yet! He’ll give us that too!

 

See comments by the primary composer on the song here: Faith Behind The Song: "Holy Forever" Chris Tomlin | Air1 Worship Music

 

Also see some comments here by another co-composer: Holy Forever by Chris Tomlin - Songfacts

 

 

Information on the image is here: File:Paradiso Canto 31.jpg - Wikimedia Commons…Author    

Gustave Doré (1832–1883)…This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.

I Will Change Your Name -- D.J. Butler

 

Could he have been reading what the prophet Isaiah once recorded about names changing? Were some of his own emotional and spiritual struggles rooted in what D.J. Butler penned in 1987, when he entitled a song “I Will Change Your Name”? Perhaps it was a struggle with God that he remembered changed Jacob’s life’s trajectory (see the 19^th Century artistry by Leon Bonnat here, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, which depicts this). Whatever were the circumstances, D.J. didn’t need to say much with his poetry to get across his point – actually, it really was God’s point. It’s a message to the hurting, the depressed who have lost themselves in life’s maelstrom, a feeling that you’re being sucked downward by something that has you in its power. D.J.’s message comes straight from God Himself. Don’t give up the struggle, and see if He will not change your outlook, the way He did so long ago for some others.

 

It is rather ironic that a song about changing one’s name is written by a fellow whose background seems so obscured. D.J.’s name is known, but really nothing else besides the few lines of poetry that he used as the foundation for ‘I Will Change Your Name’. But that’s fine, because what he has to say is so universally true. It is a God-message, one which the patriarchs heard in the beginning pages of what God has provided for us today to see how He has related to mankind. His effect wasn’t just a onetime episode. Abram (exalted father) became Abraham (father of many, Genesis 17:5), and his grandson Jacob became Israel (Gen. 32:28; 35:10-11) after he struggled with God (through His angel) all night and pretty much demanded a blessing. God told both of these patriarchs that many nations would be their progeny. Has anyone else in history had so much impact as father and grandfather?! Jacob’s name would no longer be associated with deception (Jacob, the heel-grasper), but instead as Israel (one who struggles with God). That’s quite a reversal. God wasn’t quite through, however. He took so many ordinary people in history and empowered them – Moses, all the prophets, the judges, kings like David, later Paul the apostle; the list goes on and on, including many in the Hebrews 11 chorus. Perhaps Isaiah says it best in his prophecy (Isaiah 62:1-5), as God spun some poetry to lift a nation’s outlook, to a people who felt ‘desolate’ and ‘deserted’ (v. 4), but who would become God’s delight as if they were married to Him. In the New Testament, this same God takes it to another plane through two ‘ordinary men’ (Peter and John, Acts 4:13) with the extraordinary courage to tell the Sanhedrin that the crucified Jesus was not the rejected building stone, but the capstone/cornerstone. Not crushed and crumbled into dust, but glowing and whole after being enshrined as Everlasting King.

 

He did the amazing for His Messiah-Son, but do you think He’s through? It seems that He has – through Jesus – given us the ultimate model, and D.J. has reminded us that others may view us as ‘wounded’, ‘outcast’, ‘lonely’, and ‘afraid’, but you and I don’t need to remain in that desolate state (in Isaiah’s words). In D.J.’s words, I can acquire more names on the mountaintop than I had in my emotional valley. I get six new names -- confidence, joyfulness, overcoming one, faithfulness, friend of God, one who seeks my face – versus the four that I thought were permanently branded on me. And, as I read the bible He’s preserved for me, I see other examples of transformation, of individuals who were completely human, and yet look what happened. Keep reading. Do you feel ‘ordinary’ or worse? Get the courage injection that they did in Acts 4. Meet Jesus. He says that He might even change your name.  

   

Check out this article by a professor-author on this subject: » “I Will Change Your Name” John Mark Hicks

 

See information on the image here: File:Jacob Wrestling with the Angel by Leon Bonnat.jpg - Wikimedia Commons…The author died in 1922, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.  {{PD-1996}} – public domain in its source country on January 1, 1996 and in the United States.

I Give You My Heart -- Reuben Morgan

He probably could have said that what he meant was that he wanted to be one with the One who made him. For a 20-year old to say “I Give You My Heart” in 1995 may have been really startling for some people, but it wasn’t just a casual short-term objective that Reuben Morgan vocalized, given what he’s done in the nearly 30 years since he wrote this ballad for the Hillsong church (see a picture of its convention center here). Dozens of songs and albums later, Reuben’s initial foray into songwriting for this Australian church movement in hindsight has seemed like a personal life goal that he visualized and has realized. He wanted to sing to Him and about Him, and that’s what Reuben has done unswervingly. This wasn’t just some self-actualized dream that Reuben floated to God, whom he was sure had the power to make it happen in just the way that Reuben wanted. Reuben wanted to match his goals to his Maker’s, and to be molded by Him and change himself if necessary. That, as Reuben said with the song’s premiere, was the way to find incredible happiness inside His purposes.

 

In Reuben’s words that he wrote (for the album God is in the House) to comment on the song’s purpose, he said the following: The heart of GOD is for us to be completely sold out to HIM. Our thoughts, passions and dreams (everything that makes us who we are) only have true life as they become HIS to shape and to mould. As we give our heart and our soul to GOD we then walk in the endless riches that are found in intimacy with HIM. That sounds like someone who understood implicitly what it means to bear the image of God. It was all about God, and a complete embodiment in who He is. And so, it shouldn’t be unexpected that Reuben would address Him directly as ‘You’ and ‘Your’ in his lyrics, and to offer himself and his own thoughts to Him as ‘I’, ‘my’, and ‘me’. He and God were the only ones sharing in this conversation. The ‘Lord’ to whom Reuben spoke throughout was the only audience. Reuben’s ‘desire’, his ‘heart’, his ‘soul’, his ‘breath’, his ‘moment(s)’, and ‘all (he had) and ‘adore(d)’ was for Him; indeed, to ‘live’ was for Him. ‘Worship’ and ‘praise’ flowed from this seminal realization that welled up inside of Reuben. Could anything in a person’s life be more determinative than what Reuben has said? That light isn’t just at the end of a dark tunnel. It is all around you, and inside of you. Perhaps one of the few humans to get close to experiencing this level of intimacy with God was Moses on Mount Sinai, when his face was radiant after speaking with the Almighty directly (Exodus 34:29-35), a manifestation that frightened the rest of the community and even Moses’ brother Aaron. Yes, it might look rather dangerous to be close to, even one with, this God. Moses would not have had it any other way.

 

Where one’s true self, purpose, and joy are found makes all the difference, and really gives us an appreciation of why Jesus felt so much angst as He considered the separation, albeit temporary and absolutely necessary, from His Father. In Gethsemane He begged the Father to find another way, if possible. On the cross, Jesus quoted forlornly Psalm 22 about being forsaken. And yet, he was resolute (Luke 9:51) about His Divine mission. This was the only way, and He must have known, yearned so much for, and wanted this intimacy with the Father to be for each of us, that He accepted the horror of estrangement for a time. Sin is that bad, and being one with Him is so great – those two truths bring what Jesus did into sharp focus. Don’t cavalierly toss aside what He’s done and discard what He’s bought for you and me. It is priceless. Don’t wait until eternity to find this out.   

 

Read about the song story here: I Give You My Heart (Hillsong song) - Wikipedia

Read about the author-composer here: Reuben Morgan - Wikipedia

 

See Hillsong Convention Centre image information here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hillsong_Convention_Centre.jpg   This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Tatie2189. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: Tatie2189 grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.