A Gifted Response

This is a gifted response
Father we cannot come to You by our own merit
We will come in the name of Your son
As He glorifies You
And in the power of Your Spirit

~
We have come to something so mysterious
Too deep for minds to comprehend
Through the open door
Where the angels sing
And the host of heaven are antheming…

* *
And we’ll sing the glory of Your name
Celebrate the glories of Your fame
We will worship You, We will worship You!
And we’ll make Your praise so glorious
Singing songs of everlasting praise
We will worship You, We will worship You!

“Two themes run through this song. Firstly, that worship is a ‘gifted response’. We cannot do it in our own strength, or offer it by our own merits. Anything we ever bring to God belongs to Him in the first place. If we sing a song to Him, he gave us the breath we sing it with. If we tithe some money, it was already His. If we help an elderly lady across the street, he gave us the strength in which we carry out that act of service.

Acts 17 reminds us: “He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything.”

Every single thing we can offer to God came from Him in the first place. So we cannot worship in our own strength – God gifts us to make the response. But worship is also a gifted response in that we cannot offer it on our own merit. We can only come in the name of the Son – through what Jesus accomplished at the cross. As Harold best puts it, “While the believer offers, Christ perfects.” And we come too in the power of the Holy Spirit. So, in each and every way, worship is a ‘gifted response’.

The second theme running through the song is that we’re called to worship God in as glorious a way as possible – to paint a big picture of His worth. Psalm 66:2 urges us, “Make His praise glorious.” That should be a quest of every lead worshipper… to bring worship in a manner that speaks of the glory of the One we are approaching. The church has a call to announce the glory of God in her worship – songs, sounds, lyrics (and ultimately lives) that fanfare the greatness of our God. Too often we paint a picture of a tame, ordinary God – and all of a sudden we shrink Him down to the size of us. As God tells the worshippers in Psalm 50 – “You thought I was altogether like You.” I want write ‘higher’ songs – songs that cause people to gaze upwards at the wonders of who God is.

Matt Redman, speaking about his song “A Gifted Response”