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 very modern hymns.
Today’s song is Furious from 2011.
It’s such a strange name for a hymn 😀. It emphasizes the intensity of God’s love.
Ephesians 3:17-19
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
When life is hard, we can wonder why a loving God doesn’t intervene and swiftly solve all our problems. But Jesus warned us that in this world, we will have trouble. The disciples had trouble because they were followers of Jesus – but even those who don’t follow Jesus have trouble.
But why doesn’t God just lift us into heaven when we repent and believe? The way I see it is that this life is like a preparation course that will make heaven even greater for us when we get there. Maybe this isn’t a good illustration – but I can think how enjoyable the weekends were when I worked all week. Heaven will be like an eternal weekend – with no Monday morning to follow 😀. And when we suffer, it gives us some slight indication of what Jesus suffered for us and what we would suffer in hell if He hadn’t redeemed us. Even atheists often see some good in having gone through suffering and emerging from it.
And just think of the notion of God Himself sending His one and only Son to die for us. And Jesus Himself willing to go to the cross for us. I liked my tropical fish when I was in my late teens. I’d spend money to feed them, but why would I do anything else for something that was so far beneath me? I could imagine making a greater sacrifice for a cat or dog and definitely for a friend. But isn’t it amazing that God cares so much about us.
Romans 5:6-8
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
People of other faiths are sometimes puzzled by God having a son. He’s not the Son of God in the sense that humans have sons born to them. It’s more of an illustration of status – something like the status of the son of a King. Jesus was born as a human, when He came into the world – but as God, He existed eternally. And everything that was created, was created through Him:
John 1:1-3 and 14
 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
It shouldn’t surprise us that God is plural. Love is embedded in His nature, and how could you love before you created anyone to love? Love existed for eternity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That’s what we call them, but we must remember that God is beyond our understanding. Yet, when He chooses to speak in our language and use human illustrations, we accept them. The New Testament church appeared to do just that. In the following centuries, when people tried to dig deeper philosophically, there was much debate and dissent. But the main church eventually settled on the doctrine of the Trinity. I grew up a Roman Catholic and questioned much of the church’s teaching – such as praying to Mary and saints and so on. But when I see something confirmed in the Bible, I accept it. The Bible doesn’t use the word “Trinity”, but it’s clear that there is only one God and that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And it’s not a single individual presenting Himself in three ways, because the interact. For example, Jesus prayed to His Father, and the Father openly declared Jesus to be His Son.
I have a silly illustration to help me understand the Trinity – though it falls far short of explaining it. I think of meeting my 20 and 40 year old selves for coffee. Would they be me or would they be someone different? Maybe I could feel we are one and feel we can communicate as individuals. All human illustrations of the Trinity fall short. It’s a mystery that we just need to accept. And we don’t even need to look at God to find mysteries beyond our understanding. There are of mysteries in science – especially in modern physics. 😀 I’ve even heard someone claim that our minds include different versions of our selves and others claim that there is no “self” in there. If this life has puzzles, why should we think that we can understand everything about God? If we were just inventing him, no doubt, we could keep it all very simple.
Some even see love as a mystery. I remember discovering this Prefab Sprout song in 2021 – though it was on their 1997 Andromeda Heights album. It’s about romantic love, but God’s love is much deeper. I love the song though.
Here are some other versions of today’s song:
