Day 21

Welcome Back!

In case you are new here, I want to let you know about a journey that I have been on. This journey is the journey to listen to nothing but Christian music for 30 days, and I HIGHLY recommend that you take the challenge too! If you are wondering why I am taking this challenge, or what it is that I am expecting to get out of this challenge, then I suggest that you go and read my very first blog post. And if you were wondering about the impact that this challenge has had on my life so far, then I suggest that you go and read any other blog that I have written. Now, let’s get into today’s blog.

Right away, I want to give an account for myself, and where I have been the last couple of days. If you have been wondering where I was, then I would like to thank you for caring first off, and secondly, I have been visiting my girlfriend in Charleston, SC. It has been an amazing trip so far, but it has also been packed so full of stuff to do, that I haven’t had the chance to write a blog yet. So this is my first opportunity to do it, and I am going to be cranking blogs out like it’s nothing over the next couple of days to get caught up. I want to go ON RECORD right now and say that I will be entirely caught up by Wednesday of this week, so hang with me because there is going to be a lot of good stuff coming out soon!

Phew, with that out of the way, now I can get back into what we are all here for, and that is the song spotlights. The song that I am spotlighting today is a song that I have been wanting to spotlight for a while now, but I haven’t found the right opportunity for it.. until now. The song is called “Raise a Hallelujah” and it is by Bethel Music. The reason why the song works for today’s blog is because of the sermon that I heard today at church. As I mentioned before, I am visiting my girlfriend in Charleston right now, and she attends a church called Seacoast, and I attended church with her today. The sermon that was preached was a “rehashing” of some of the things that this church believes in, and one of the big things that they believe in (as do I) is that we are CALLED to worship God. And because we are called to worship him, that should be something that we make a priority, and not become something that we avoid or see through merely an earthly viewpoint. Because we are called to worship our creator, we should seek out the opportunities to SING his praises! And this is something that is 100% confirmed in the Bible, because there is an entire book in the Bible called Pslams, which are literally just a huge collection of songs! This ties in with the song perfectly as you will see, because there is a line in the song that calls out worship a weapon.

Now, let’s dig into the lyrics, and the first lyrics that I want to talk about are actually in the first verse. The song starts out: “I raise a hallelujah, in the presence of my enemies, I raise a hallelujah, louder than the unbelief, I raise a hallelujah, our weapon is a melody, I raise a hallelujah, heaven comes to fight for me.” There is a lot in there that I want to unpack, so let’s start with the first line. The thing that you will immediately notice is how the artist repeats “I raise a hallelujah” and that is very deliberate. They are trying to ingrain that idea into your head, that no matter what happens, you should “raise a hallelujah”. Now, with that explained, let’s talk about the couplets that are paired with those refrains. The first one talks about how he praises God in the presence of our enemies. All throughout the Bible, and especially in the Old Testament, God talks about how he goes ahead of his people, and fights their battles when they fully believe in him. He commands his people to CRY out to him in those situations because he wants to deliver them out of their hard times. There is a story from the book of Joshua, that is very famous, that paints this picture beautifully, and if you will stay with me, I would like to examine the rest of this song with that story in mind. If you have never heard the story before, I suggest that you go read it in Joshua chapters 1 and 2. But if you don’t have the time right now, I will give you cliff note version. The people of Isreal had just been called to take over the city of Jericho, but they were afraid of the city because of it’s tall wall. So in order to test the people’s faith in him, God commanded the people of Isreal to march around the wall, singing songs of praise to him, and playing music for him. He had them do this for 7 days. Then on the 7th day, God had the people do this 7 times, and then after the 7th lap around the city, God brought the walls of the city down, and the people of Isreal were able to capture the city no problem.

Now let’s get back into the song. Just like in the Battle of Jericho, God still wants us to raise a hallelujah in the presence of our enemies. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of those people marching around the city? I can only imagine how it played out, but I assume it went something like this.. The guards of the city wall would stand at their posts and just watch the people marching on the ground beneath them, singing songs of praise to their God, and claiming that the wall was going to come down. Those guards probably thought that idea was hysterical, and I’m sure that some of those guards even laughed as the people of Isreal passed by them. That would have been an embarrassing and nerve-wracking thing for those Isrealites to have to see. I’m sure some of them even thought “Goodness, if this doesn’t work, then those guys up there are going to slaughter us if we try to take over the city.” But God had a plan then, and he has a plan now. He wants his people to raise a hallelujah in the presence of their enemies, because it shows those people that they are not mightier than God, and that no matter what happens, we believe that God is for us and he is on our side. The next line that I want to talk about is the third line, and it is the one that says “my weapon is a melody”. For those people marching around the walls of Jericho, their weapon LITERALLY was a melody! But for us in our day to day life, our weapon is a still a melody, because this is how we respond to God based on our faith. When we believe in God, and have a relationship with him, we can’t help but to respond in worship! It will just make you want to sing his praises from the mountaintops, because you want the world to know how amazing this God of yours is. And that praise, is a weapon against the unbelief and death that has corrupted this world. And then the last line that I want to talk about, is how it says that “heaven comes to fight for me” and I think that is awesome. For the early Isrealites marching around Jericho, heaven LITERALLY did come down and fight for them, on this and many other occasions. And in your life, I believe that God will do the same thing! When you call out in worship to him during the darkest times of your life, God cannot help but to feel compassion for you, and he WILL come down to fight for you. And that is something that we all need to keep in mind.

The last thing that I want to talk about is the main chorus, and it goes like this: “I’m gonna sing, in the middle of the storm, Louder and louder, you’re gonna hear my praises roar! Up from the ashes, hope will arise, death is defeated, the king is alive!” I think this is a beautiful thing, and is something that we should all feel inspired by, because the song speaks to this simple truth: When we call out to God in the middle of our storms, he will hear us, and come rescue us, because he was raised from the dead, and he has defeated death! Which means that sin has no hold on you anymore, and you can now join God in his presence! Now, I understand that is a lot to fully understand, and I don’t think that we will every fully comprehend that, but I would like to spend the rest of eternity trying my best to! So when things are going wrong in your life, turn to the one who hears you, and sing your praises to him. Then sing a little louder, and sing a little louder, and then sing a little louder, until you are singing with all that is inside of you! I pray that you will listen to this song on your own, because I don’t have enough time to go through the rest of this song, I pray that this song impacts you in the same way that it has impacted me! God bless you, and have a wonderful rest of your day.