God!—Part 3

God!—Part 3   

As I have written before, nothing matters as much in our lives as God.  Christian musicians need to be often reminded that everything else we do is wood, hay, and stubble if it is not saturated with the presence and power of the Holy Ghost.  I think of the hymn written by Isaac Watts:

Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all Thy quick’ning powers;
Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours.

Look how we grovel here below,
Fond of these trifling toys;
Our souls can neither fly nor go
To reach eternal joys.

In vain we tune our formal songs,
In vain we strive to rise;
Hosannas languish on our tongues,
And our devotion dies.

Dear Lord! and shall we ever live
At this poor dying rate?
Our love so faint, so cold to Thee,
And Thine to us so great?

Come, Holy Spirit, heav’nly Dove,
With all Thy quick’ning powers;
Come, shed abroad the Savior’s love
And that shall kindle ours.

The third verse says, “In vain we tune our formal songs”.  How true that statement is if the musician does not heed the words of the first verse which entreats, “Come Holy Spirit” and “kindle a flame of sacred love”.  Often in the midst of my musical pursuits over the last forty four years I have come to the realization that my heart was hot toward music but in the process my heart was going cold toward God.  It is truly a vain practice to be so concerned with vainly tuning our harp while at the same time we fail to tune our heart.
            I am literally brought to my knees by Watt’s statement “our love so faint, so cold to Thee, and Thine to us so great”.  We, as Christian musician musicians must remember that nothing in our lives matters as much as our relationship to God.  What is the answer to this dilemma?  Again Watts provides the answer.  It is the quickening power of the Holy Spirit that will kindle and warm our hearts for efficacious music ministry.