I hope this post finds you well. I want to start by thanking Travis for letting me crash his new blog party. I hope yall three of you that read this will be encouraged. If not, at least you will be entertained.

Webb Wednesday this week features one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists. Described simply as “a song about Jesus” Lover is a dylanesque telling of Jesus’ story from His perspective. ENJOY!!!!

Lover
Words and Music By Derek Webb

like a man comes to an alter i came into this town
with the world upon my shoulders and promises passed down
and i went into the water and my father, he was pleased
i built it and i’ll tear it down so you will be set free

but i found thieves and salesmen living in my father’s house
i know how they got in here and i know how to get ‘em out
i’m turning this place over from floor to balcony
and then just like these doves and sheep you will be set free

i’ve always been a lover from before i drew a breath
some things i loved easy and some i loved to death
because love’s no politician, it listens carefully
of those who come i can’t lose one, so you will be set free

but go on and take my picture, go on and make me up
i’ll still be your defender, you’ll be my missing son
and i’ll send out an army just to bring you back to me
because regardless of your brother’s lies you will be set free

i am my beloveds and my beloved’s mine
so you bring all your history and i’ll bring the bread and wine
and we’ll have us a party where all the drinks are on me
then as surely as the rising sun you will be set free

I would definitely encourage any Christian to remember that all of scripture is profitable for teaching, correction, and application. We don’t need to camp out in one area of Scripture, but we need all of what Scripture tells us to teach about who we are and who God is. Sometimes encouraging the church in truth, as we are to worship in truth, means to expose not only my sin but your sin as well. This is so we might all repent and come to Jesus. Even as believers we still need to come to Jesus. We need to come to Him with our idols and our imperfections and the wreck that we make of our lives and the way that we love each other and the way that we live. We need to stop hiding our sin from each other, pretending to be people that we’re not. We need to stop pretending to be righteous and holy people when really we are a wreck. The church is a total wreck…all of us corporately and individually are a wreck and we need Jesus desperately. I’ve been a believer for twelve years and I am more desperate for Jesus than I was even twelve years ago when He saved me because I have that much greater of an awareness of my sin and my need for Him. I think that we’re not really encouraging each other as a church. In truth, we’re not really doing that if we’re flattering each other, hiding our sin from each other, and allowing our sin to be hidden from one another. We need to call each other out of our hiding places. We need to model repentance with each other. I should come to you and say, “You know what, I’m not this great and righteous perfect person that you might think I am. Please don’t think I am and let me confess to you my sin, let me show you all the ways that I am a total wreck, that we might see Jesus instead of seeing me.” That, in turn, by design, should draw the same type of repentance out of you and for you to say, “Well here are my sins…” The truth is, regardless of how mature of a Christian that we are, and as we mature in our Christian faith, we shouldn’t find ourselves as less and less sinful, more and more righteous, and better and better about ourselves. We should be realizing the further depth of our sin, that we might more fully repent and fall more heavily upon Jesus because even in glory, when we’re free of our sin completely, when we’re not sinning against each other any more, even then, we’ll only have Jesus, even then we’ll have no claim on God’s favor because we’ll still be a redeemed people. So I personally think anything we can do to rightly encourage each other in Jesus is very important. Part of the Gospel is to show the cross to each other, to show Jesus and Him crucified. That’s the Gospel and that’s offensive…but there’s nothing you can do about it. If it’s not offensive than you’re not telling it right. To look at Jesus on the cross is, in fact, offensive to who we are and how we live. I am offended by some of the language on my record…and rightly so. We should all be rightly offended, as James tells us, that we might corporately despair, lament, and weep over our sins that we might come to Jesus with nothing else because we don’t have anything else. The illusion is that we do have more to come to Jesus with, and the American church unfortunately doesn’t do a lot to break those paradigms down.

-Derek Webb