People are influenced by music because it has the power to transport them into God's presence. It can awaken them to dimensions beyond their ordinary experience and kindle in them a love for God's majesty, power, and splendor. Though this can also happen in prayer, Scripture reading, or a sermon, for most people it happens in music. It leads us into sacred space, sacred time.
According to George Herbert, England's greatest devotional poet and an accomplished musician, church music is "the way to heaven's door." Contemporary composers, worship leaders, and theologians make similar points. "Worship thrives on wonder," explains Matt Redman, who, with his wife Beth, authored the popular contemporary hymn "Blessed Be Your Name".
We can admire, appreciate, and perhaps even adore someone without a sense of wonder. But we cannot worship without wonder. For worship to be worship, it must contain something of the otherness of God. . . . [God] is altogether glorious–unequalled in splendor and unrivalled in power. He is beyond the grasp of human reason–far above the reach of even the loftiest scientific mind. Inexhaustible, immeasurable and unfathomable–eternal, immortal and invisible.
by Darryl Tippens,Chapter 12 excerpted from Pilgrim Heart: The Way of Jesus in Everyday Life
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