Hymn of Heaven

The next entry for my Blog is Hymn of Heaven, which was written Brian Johnson, Phil Wickham, Bill Johnson, and Chris Davenport.  It was first released June 25, 2021.  A link to Phil Wickham singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.

Hymn of Heaven

How I long to breathe the air of Heaven

Where pain is gone and mercy fills the streets
To look upon the One who bled to save me
And walk with Him for all eternity

There will be a day when all will bow before Him
There will be a day when death will be no more
Standing face to face with He who died and rose again
Holy, holy is the Lord

And every prayer we prayed in desperation
The songs of faith we sang through doubt and fear
In the end, we’ll see that it was worth it
When He returns to wipe away our tears

Oh, there will be a day when all will bow before Him
There will be a day when death will be no more
Standing face to face with He who died and rose again
Holy, holy is the Lord

And on that day, we join the resurrection
And stand beside the heroes of the faith
With one voice, a thousand generations
Sing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain”

And on that day, we join the resurrection
And stand beside the heroes of the faith
With one voice, a thousand generations
Sing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain”
“Forever He shall reign”

So let it be today we shout the hymn of Heaven
With angels and the saints, we raise a mighty roar
Glory to our God who gave us life beyond the grave
Holy, holy is the Lord

So let it be today we shout the hymn of Heaven
With angels and the saints, we raise a mighty roar
Glory to our God who gave us life beyond the grave
Holy, holy is the Lord

Holy, holy is the Lord
Holy, holy is the Lord

Many times, I have heard people say, that person is such a breath of fresh air; meaning the person brings light into a challenging situation.  The writer of this song starts by saying they long for the breath of fresh air that only heaven can bring.  No matter how good or bad things are for us today, heaven will far surpass all of our hopes and dreams.  It is a place where there is no pain or sorrow and everywhere we look is perfection.  We get to spend time with Jesus, who is the one who died for us so we could spend forever with him.  That day will come when we will bow down to him in reverence as well as thankfulness for what he did for us.  Some of the greatest things in heaven, other than time with our savior, will be that there will be no more death, no more sadness, no more suffering, no more tears of sadness, and we will be reunited with friends and family who had accepted Christ and passed on before us.  Every time we experience this joy, we will be thanking Jesus for dying for us and reuniting us with  our loved ones.

It is challenging to talk about anything after thinking about the above, it all will be so so wonderful.  The problem is that we let the challenges of our life take over our daily thoughts again and again.  It all seems to be an act of desperation.  Part of the problem is that we do no pray enough, which leads us to forget about God and his role in our lives.  We are told in 1st Thessalonians 5:16-17, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”.  We need to thank God for everything he has done for us in our lives.  We should also pray for the needs of our families, our friends, our enemies, our country, and the entire world.  All of these are God’s creations, he put all of us here.   We sometimes give up hope after praying for so long, it is almost as if our desperate pleas are not being heard.  We maybe go to church and sing the songs of glory, and hear the strong message of God’s promises.  I love to listen to songs about Jesus and faith on the radio and I sing my heart out.  After I leave the church building and after I get out of my car, I seem to lose some of that joy I was just experiencing; I let life take away my joy.  As the song says, it will all be worth our pain, our suffering, and our frustration with life.  The day will come when Jesus, the one who died for us, will wipe away all of our tears and fill our hearts with joy as we begin life in our new home.  We are told this in the book of Revelation 21:4, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  This promise is for those who have accepted Jesus as their personal savior.

The day that Jesus comes in the clouds, the people who have accepted him will rise into heaven to join all others who accepted him and died before us.  We will be part of the resurrection of millions of others.  We will all of a sudden be side by side with some of the greatest people of faith who ever lived.   Many of these will be people we have read about in our bibles, others will be some of the great leaders of faith that came after the time of Jesus, and most will be people who are regular everyday people who accepted Christ as their personal savior.  We will be standing with people who might have lived since mankind was first created, all of the God’s faithful will be together for the first time.  This entire gathering of the saved, which will be larger than we could ever imagine, will start singing Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.  Jesus, the sacrificial lamb, finally gets to hear all of his family sing praises to him and the father.

Wow, I am not sure I can even imagine the billions of voices from people of all eras of time and representing the entire earth singing at one time.  The angels will be also be joining in as the music reaches a crescendo that we ever thought possible.  What better way to honor our savior, who is the definition of holiness.  Holy, holy is the Lord indeed.

Click to See Phil Wickham Perform Hymn of Heaven

This is Amazing Grace

The next song for my Blog was written by Jeremy Riddle, Josh Farro, and Phil Wickham and first released in 2013. A link to Phil Wickham performing the song is at the bottom of this Blog entry.

This Is Amazing Grace

Who breaks the power of sin and darkness
Whose love is mighty and so much stronger
The King of Glory, the King above all kings
Who shakes the whole earth with holy thunder
And leaves us breathless in awe and wonder
The King of Glory, the King above all kings

This is amazing grace
This is unfailing love
That You would take my place
That You would bear my cross
You lay down Your life
That I would be set free
Oh, Jesus, I sing for
All that You’ve done for me

Who brings our chaos back into order
Who makes the orphan a son and daughter
The King of Glory, the King of Glory
Who rules the nations with truth and justice
Shines like the sun in all of its brilliance
The King of Glory, the King above all kings

This is amazing grace
This is unfailing love
That You would take my place
That You would bear my cross
You lay down Your life
That I would be set free
Oh, Jesus, I sing for
All that You’ve done for me

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Worthy is the King who conquered the grave
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Worthy is the King who conquered the grave
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Worthy is the King who conquered the grave
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Worthy, worthy, worthy

This is amazing grace
This is unfailing love
That You would take my place
That You would bear my cross
You lay down Your life
That I would be set free
Oh, Jesus, I sing for
All that You’ve done for me
All that You’ve done for me

Have you ever had the power go out in your home and end up in a room that is just pitch black? I sometimes think this is what our world would look like if we could see the darkness created by all of us sinners. It is awesome to know that our God, alone, is the only one who can overcome this darkness and squelch the grip that sin has over us. He loves us so much that he refused to let us stay in this darkness and he brought the light to us through his son. His love for us brought a light so bright that the darkness in our lives disappeared once we accepted God’s gift. There have been many many kings during the time the earth has been around and many of them were powerful and ruled large portions of the world, but our king is the king of all kings since he has the power to rule the entire planet and overcome every obstacle/temptation Satan puts in front of us. Our God is the King of Glory, meaning he alone is worthy of our praise; there is no other person or being who deserves this honor and distinction.

I like how the song refers to the power of God through thunder. A lot of times we may be having a major thunder storm and some of the thunder seems to shake the house. This shows the power of God and his unseen hand and how our strength pales in comparison to his. Not only do we see the power of storms, we also see the incredible beauty of sunrises and sunsets that leaves us in awe of everything God does. He wants us to understand his love, his power, and enjoy the majesty of all of his creations. I can’t even imagine how beautiful heaven must be, but I am sure it will even more amazing than the most incredible sunsets and sunrises we have ever seen.

He made getting to heaven easy for us since he forgave us of all of our wrongs. His gift of eternal life through grace is something we never could have earned. His grace is an amazing gift that allows us to spend eternity with him. He has never left us and he has always loved us, no matter how we treated him or how often we ignored him. God was even willing to send his only son to die for us just so we could spend eternity with him. He didn’t ask us to die on the cross for our own sins and he didn’t tell us we are not good enough. He had his only son take our place.  Take some time just to think about the depth of God’s love for us. All of this happened so we could be set free of sin, become children of God, and know that he has already prepared our eternal homes for us. This is definitely something to talk about, sing about, and share with others so they can have this same promise.

Part of the challenge of every day is just getting our arms around everything we need to do, and this is seldom easy to do. So many things pop up that just turn our plans for the day upside down. Only God can give us the peace we need and help turn our daily chaos into order. Through prayer and leaning on him, we can make it through each day as we let him guide us. I know it is hard to let go and let God lead, but that is the only path through the challenges and darkness we face.

So many times we feel alone and perhaps even unloved or unwanted. Maybe we don’t have any family around anymore, perhaps no close friends who are like family, maybe we don’t have a significant other, or maybe we truly are an orphan. The good news is that God loves us as his children and we are therefore, never unloved at any time nor are we ever an orphan. 1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us we are part of the family of God, “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.” Each of us has become part of the family of God. Our God and father watches over us, meets all of our needs, and rules the world with absolute truth and justice. It is true that Satan is here and tries to control every aspect of this world, but he is only here because our father allowed him to be here. Satan is still under the control of God our father and the day will come when Satan is locked away. It is awesome knowing that God loves us unconditionally and that he has accepted us as his children. We can never be separated from his love. Romans 8:38-39 confirms this, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We are not worthy of his love, but his worth to us is more than we can even imagine. He is worthy because he sent his son to die for us instead of us having to pay the price for our own sins and he is worthy because he let his son rise from the dead to come back to heaven and prepare a home for us.

We are free because of God’s gift of amazing grace. We will all be singing about his amazing grace.

Click to Hear This is Amazing Grace by Phil Wickham