I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the in-between hymns.
Today’s song is Forever Grateful from the 1980s.
I first heard this one when I went through Mission Praise and using Spotify, made a playlist of all the songs that I could find back in 2017. I’d recently bought an acoustic guitar, and I started learning them and playing them in our little fellowship. I’m not sure if I ever sang this one, but it was one of my favorites.
It focuses on the fact that God took the initiative in sending His Son to save us. And He sends His Holy Spirit to open our hearts to respond to the message of the gospel. Why doesn’t everyone respond? People argue about that. Some say that people resist the Holy Spirit. Others say that God chooses some people and gives them a spiritual birth that enables them to believe.
You can find Bible verses to justify both points of view. I think of it as a little like light being waves and particles – something that puzzles scientists. Surely it should be one or the other. How can it be both? Do we choose God or does God choose us?
But from the perspective of those who have already believed, we give the credit to God rather than ourselves. It’s ironic that Charles Wesley, who was Arminian is his theology (emphasizing us choosing God rather than God choosing us), wrote the following lines in his hymn; And Can it Be:
4 Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
So, he was able to rise, go forth, and follow Jesus, because God enabled him to do so. I favour the Calvinistic outlook, which emphasizes God’s work rather than ours. But I suspect that we’ll only know the full truth when we get to heaven. And even then, we’ll fall far short of being able to fully understand God.
And debates about predestination or fate verses free will go on in other religions and even in atheism. For example, some believe that human behavior is totally governed by brain activity and that the notion of someone making decisions is an illusion. It sounds odd, but this outlook is held by some experts in neuroscience, cognitive science, and in some branches of philosophy.
But none of these debates or puzzles should prevent us from worshipping and being thankful to God. And if we are concerned about those who have little or no interest in Jesus, we should pray for them, and ask God to awaken them, and for their chains to fall off and for their hearts to be set free. And we are active in repenting and believing. It doesn’t just happen to us, even if something happens to spur us on to do so.
As with many of the older “new songs”, YouTube hasn’t many performances, but I did find some:
Hibernia Gospel 