Great lyricists are amazing. They make you think, challenge your heart, fill you with hope and have a way of pointing you to their inspiration for their song.
So over a year ago I mentioned this song "How He Loves" by John Mark McMillan, that had so captured my heart and mind. I love the fact on the surface it sounds like a highly passionate worship song but is actually the writers descriptive lyrical picture of a close friend and mentor dying and coming into the presence of God Himself. I love that he is trying to help himself (and us in the process) comprehend in a picturesque way God's holiness, His mercy and grace and how humbling it will be when we truly enter into His presence. In fact, verse 1 is describing what his friend may have encountered/experienced and felt when He saw Jesus...
He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight
Of His wind and mercy
All of a sudden I am unaware of
These afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realized just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me
Oh, how He loves us so - Oh how He loves us - how He loves us so.
We are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean we're all sinking
And heaven meets earth like a sloppy, wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way that He loves us
Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves.
- "We are his portion and He is our prize" - his portion of our lives is us - ALL of us. Not the church part or the "spiritual" part but all of us. We belong to Him. (1 Cor 6:19-20). God is the prize that all who trust in Him will receive upon death. We have no way to adequately explain how much of a prize he is until the day that we are physically in His presence.
- "Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes" - I've always believed that the day that I actually see His face will be a day of shame. Why shame? I don't think that, even in the love that He's given me for Himself, I don't believe enough - at least not enough to leave behind totally a life of sin. However (and praise God for the however) I believe that as dreadful as experiencing the presence of the Holy God may seem I also believe that I will also find myself in awe and love with the God who has promised redemption and forgiveness to me by NO MERIT OF MY OWN. Unbelievable...
- "If His grace is an ocean we're all sinking" - imagine falling into the middle of the ocean with no lifejacket, nothing to grab onto and just water in all directions - there would be no hope of survival. That doesn't even describe the depths of God's grace towards us.
- "And heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss" - to me, this is his way of describing of the reality of heaven and earth meeting, Deity and humanity becoming one in a passionate, all encompassing way. It's kind of messy - it's real - it's passion - it's all or nothing...
- "and my heart turns violently inside of my chest" - when He (and us) come face to face with HIM how will we not be losing it?!? This guy is meeting the Savior - He's in the presence of the One that it says sits upon a mighty throne and is so above all that angels can't even look upon Him and constantly shout "You are Holy".
- "I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way that He loves us" - in spite of all that he is experiencing; in spite of the fact that he just wants to hide; in spite of the fact that it feels as if his heart will burst inside of him this man is overcome by the LOVE OF THE SAVIOR. It is realized that all the regrets and shame that is slamming him in the face are nothing (NOTHING!!!) compared to this love, this incomprehendable love.


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