For All The Saints: Indelible Grace III
Hymns on This Album
- A Sinner's Cry
- For All The Saints
- Jesus Cast A Look On Me
- Jesus Everlasting King
- Jesus I Come
- Jesus With Thy Church Abide
- Let Us Love And Sing And Wonder (Taylor)
- Lo He Comes With Clouds Descending (Smith)
- Mercy Speaks By Jesus' Blood
- Not What My Hands Have Done
- O Come And Mourn With Me Awhile
- O Word Of God Incarnate
- Praise My Soul The King Of Heaven (Miner)
- The Love Of Christ Is Rich And Free
Reflection
Worship is about having our sanity restored and getting in touch with reality. The gospel is always about bringing us to our senses – as the prodigal discovered! And we have come to love these hymns because they remind us of what is real and what is true – Jesus died to justify the wicked, and that changes everything! Rather than flatter ourselves, we can embrace the reality that we come to God from “bondage, sorrow and night” and yet thrill to the fact that still He invites us to come! The gospel is the great surprise that stirs us to “love and sing and wonder” because the Lord who bought us “pitied us when enemies” and in His death at the cross “grace and justice, join and point to mercy’s store.” All the wrath due His people was poured out on Jesus and so “when through grace in Christ our trust is, justice smiles and asks no more!” This is the gospel that drives these hymns, that brings the kind of courage celebrated in “For All The Saints” and that brings freedom to come to Jesus even when full of “arrogant pride.” We love these hymns because they help us see the kingdom of God as bigger than just our moment in time, and the church as bigger than just our friends. These hymns connect us to those who have gone before – those who’ve struggled just like us and who have found the gospel big enough for all their struggles! We sing these hymns in the hope that God would sink these truths deep into our hearts – and believe He is doing just that.
This is now our third collection of hymns set to new music, and this one has a mood of sober joy. I think reality is just sinking in a little more. The Christian life is not about closing our eyes and pretending Jesus turns all of our lemons into lemonade, and worship music should never be about helping us live out of touch with reality. Rather worship music should deepen our gaze of Jesus and His beauty and at the same time, open our eyes to the brokenness in ourselves and our world and compel us to take up our cross and follow Him. We have been “ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven” – and that changes everything!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Rev. Kevin Twit, Campus Minister
Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), Belmont University
Nashville TN www.belmontruf.org
