It’s been a while since I featured a modern praise song here. As regular readers of my blog know, from time to time, I share a particularly good song. I stick to modern praise songs because they are so often spurned or ignored among fundamentalists and other conservative evangelicals. Yes there is a lot of fluff out there, but there are some excellent and worthy songs which we should not hesitate to use. Many of these songs are suitable in a variety of accompaniments or styles, too.
Many of my favorite modern worship songs are produced by the folks at Sovereign Grace Ministries. Apparently, in the intervening months since the last time I highlighted one of their songs, SGM has updated their website. This makes it easier to find songs and music samples, etc. But this means I have to update all my old links. 🙁
If you aren’t familiar with SGM’s music, you really need to be! They are producing some of the finest, Christ-centered, doctrinally rich, tasteful music out there. Sometimes they simply rework an old hymn. I have highlighted songs from Sovereign Grace Ministries here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. (Hover your cursor over the “here”s to distinguish which “here” it is!)
Steve and Vikki Cook did a wonderful job in reviving the old and forgotten hymn “Before the Throne of God Above“. And they struck gold again with “Here Is Love”. They added a chorus, changed some of the words, and melded parts of the third and fourth stanzas into a single third stanza. They wrote a new melody, and the result is a beautiful song.
Here Is Love
music and extra lyrics by Steve & Vikki Cook
lyrics by William Rees
Here is love wide as the ocean
Loving kindness as a flood
When the Prince of Life, our ransom
Shed for us His precious blood
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten
Throughout Heaven\’s eternal days
On the mount of crucifixion
Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God\’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide
Grace and love like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above
And Heaven\’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love
Oh how marvelous, oh how glorious
Is my Savior\’s love for me!
Oh how marvelous, oh how glorious
Is my Savior\’s love for me!
Of Your fullness You are pouring
Your great love on me anew
Without measure, full and boundless
Drawing out my heart to You
You alone will be my glory
Nothing in the world I see
You have cleansed and sanctified me
You Yourself have set me free
© 2002 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP). Sovereign Grace Music, a division of Sovereign Grace Ministries. From the CD All We Long to See.
To hear a sample of how the song sounds, click here. To download a free guitar sheet, transparency sheet, or even the musical score (“lead sheet” is actually a free musical score with the words included), click here. To hear an original tune and learn more about the original hymn, click here. To order the CD from Amazon (and support my site) click the image to the right. To learn more about the CD and to sample it, click here.
I may need to start digging through that new website of their’s trying to find accompaniment tracks for my own personal little “music ministry.” I can’t do much with “The Old King James” anymore! 🙂
In so doing, John, don’t forget Keith Getty’s website. (You’ll have to Google it [better yet Blingo it, see my sidebar]). They have tracks and lyrics for some rich hymns in the tradition of “In Christ Alone”.
Yea, I’d retire “The Old King James” (your first and only hit) from service. Okay, I take that back, your song on the 1 Cor. 15 was good.
Gotta run…