Worship music is powerful. When I first heard Vertical Church Band’s “Spirit of the Living God” a few months ago, I knew immediately that it had made a permanent impact on me. There are a few worship songs in the past that have done that—songs like Chris Tomlin’s “Good, Good, Father” and Kari Jobe’s “You Are For Me.” Earlier it was Hillsong’s “Shout to the Lord” that held the top spot. Before that it was Keith Green’s “Make My Life A Prayer to You,” and Chuck Girard’s “Abba Father.” I even remember the impact “Oh My Jesus” by Ron Salisbury had on me as a teen.
Those were songs that I would listen to over and over, and sing in my mind all day long. I let them push me and move me toward a deeper personal relationship with Jesus. Everything in my life was touched by them—my prayers, my thoughts, my ideas, and even my vocabulary. “Spirit of the Living God” did that to me when I heard it. As the wellspring of this blog post, it is echoing in my soul. I am especially fond of these lyrics in the chorus:
‘Cause when You speak. and when You move;
When You do what only You can do
It changes us, it changes what we see, and what we seek.
I have mulled over the full meaning of those lyrics for some time now, and here is my take. God, and God alone, is “placed above” and “set apart” from anyone or anything else, because there are some things that “only He can do.”
