God...Worship...And The Charlie Daniels Band

Psalm 150 From The Message Bible

Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy house of worship

Praise him for his acts of power.
Praise Him for his magnificent greatness.
Praise with a blast of the trumpet.

Praise by strumming soft strings.

Praise him with castanets and dance.
Praise him with banjo and flute.
Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum.

Praise him with fiddles and mandolin.

Let every living, breathing creature praise God!

Hallelujah!

I am amazed at the power of music. Shouldn't be, but I am. Music is a gift from God to us, His creation, to express emotion and thought beyond words. The diversity of music, types...styles....sounds....cadence and tempo are like a painters pallet that holds the paint. It you think about it....every painting begins with those globs of paint there on the pallet. If you look at it...you can't see anything that makes sense or even resembles the finished work. But little by little, as each bit of paint is lifted from the pallet and placed on the canvas, the picture takes shape. Between the paint and the brush stands the artist. 

Same with music. 

Being a guitar player, on more than one occasion I thought to myself that every guitar contains every note and chord of every song ever written, being written, or will be written. It takes the musician and the creative Spirit of God to lift off the notes and bring order to them. It takes God to inspire and arrange the song.

Now if the heart of the musician is one of a follower of Jesus, then you've got something special. You've got worship. 

Last night, I took my son and grand son to see the Charlie Daniels Band. I've always loved his music, I guess because of my raising and the type of music we had around our house. Throw a little country in the pot and stir with some Southern Rock and you've got a potent mix that will hunt. I know it appeals to a certain section of society...I guess that would include me. Some years back, Charlie got himself saved. Real salvation, not celebrity-look-at-me salvation. He wanted to do an album of songs that reflected his new love for Christ, but chose to wait five years before doing so. "I didn't want folks to accuse me of trying to profit off my new life," was Charlies explanation. Well....it was a doozy and the song I've chosen, in the video above, is a cut from that album. It is a reflection of the awareness that, like the apostle Paul, our sin nature would pick bad two out of three times.

One other thing....
I saw the power of God in a song last night.

Charlie was playing all the standards that one might expect from one of his concerts. At one point, the band left the stage and Charlie sat down on a stool with his guitar. He began to softly play. The song was not recognizable but was very pleasing to the ear. The crowd was a typical rock concert crowd...loud and rowdy, but something happened as this song progressed........suddenly Charlie began singing...."Oh Lord, my God....when I in awesome wonder...consider all....the world's thy hands have made..." 

How Great Thou Art.

The crowd stopped what they were doing....

The room grew silent.
They may not have had words to explain what was happening, but the three Bynum men knew. Charlie was worshiping. It was an incredible display of the presence of God ushered in through a song. I will say this...it was the only song of the evening where the entire crowd stood and applauded when it was over.

It was a good evening for clan Bynum.

We made some memories, as this was Tyler's first concert.

He got to hear his favorite songs.

And we had been in the presence of God...
How cool was that.

God on you..

mb