A Music Challenge
Have you ever been listening to a worship station, and it suddenly occurs to you that some of the songs being played you would find on secular stations? Have you realized that the stations that are meant to play songs that glorify God and remind the believer that He is our hope, are playing songs that either don’t mention God at all, mention Him as an afterthought, or are even heretical? I certainly have. In today’s world where more and more “Christian” musicians and even pastors are coming out and stating that they actually do not believe in God, I have a challenge for you. When you turn on the radio or whatever you use to listen to worship music, I ask that you really sit and reflect on the words of the songs. Which is what I am wanting to do today, I want to look at a song that is commonly played on the Christian station. The song that I want to discuss is the song “Breakup Song” by Francesca Battistelli.
In order to not have the song take up the majority of this post, I am only going to show the chorus of the song but ask that you look at the rest of the lyrics yourself to see that I am not pulling it out of context.
“Fear, you don't own me
There ain't no room in this story
And I ain't got time for you
Telling me what I'm not
Like you know me well guess what?
I know who I am
I know I'm strong
And I am free
Got my own identity
So fear, you will never be welcome here”
When you listen to this song, you see that the artist is stating that she is “breaking up” with fear. Now when you hear the song it is rather ambiguous about what is causing the fear. Is it an abusive relationship that they finally have the strength to leave? Is it just normal fears and doubts that are weighing the artist down? You don’t really know and so this song can be relatable to different people in different stages of life. This in and of itself is not a bad thing and I am not saying that this song is bad, however, when you look at the lyrics you see that the song is very “me” centered. The artist states that she has “her own identity” but does not specify what that is. For the born-again believer, our identity is not in ourselves, but in Jesus Christ the Son of God. This is a fact that the artist overlooks throughout the entire song. The born-again believer does not need to be worried because Jesus has overcome the world and everything in it, “33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”” John 16:33
Now my second issue with this song, the artist states over and over again that they are freed from fear. While this may sound like an encouraging thing, it is overlooking the fact that we are supposed to have fear of God. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10. Now this fear of God is not a bad thing and often our minds associate the word “fear” as to be afraid of something. The “fear of the Lord” is more so of an acknowledgment of the awe that born-again believers should have in regard to a God who has every right to judge us and yet He frees us from sin. Our fear of Him is knowing we should be condemned and so we surrender to God and His will.
Now as an act of comparison, I ask that you randomly open a chapter in the book of Psalm. This is exactly what I have done for this post and so I landed on Psalm 67.
“May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
2 that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
6 The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
7 God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!”
Psalm 67
Can you see the difference? In some worship songs out there it is very “me” centric but true Biblical worship has the focus on God. In this very short psalm, the focus is on God and we can find so much encouragement in it. This is why I ask you all to look at the songs that are being played and sung; not just on the radio, but in our churches as well. If you find a song that is being ambiguous about if it is worshiping God, bring it up to your pastor. Take the Biblical references found in songs back to the word of God! This is why the Berean’s received such praise, “11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11
Being a Berean is not just in regards to checking on Bible verses ourselves, but it is also in regards to knowing what we are singing. If we are setting aside time to worship God through music, the music needs to glorify Him. King David did this very well as we can see in the psalms that he wrote. The psalms were meant to be played to music and when you look through them, you see in every one there are verses dedicated to glorifying God, praising Him, and even psalms that are designed to ask God questions. We cannot simply assume that because a song is being played on a “Christian” station, that it is in fact a song that is honoring God. In fact many of today’s so called Christian worship leaders are wolves in sheep’s clothing, causing the true born again believer to sing songs that have no business being used in Church or any other time worshiping our God. I challenge you to not be passive in this area of your faith; sit and listen to the words and the meaning behind the songs, take them back to scripture to see if it would be similar to what is found in the book of Psalms or is it being played because the artist supposedly claims to be a Christian? I hope that if you do this challenge, you will find songs that truly worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Seek the truth and encourage one another,
Alex