Welcome to Day 1 of our Summer Devotional 2020. We’re believing you’ll be encouraged as you read, as you meditate on God’s Word and as you allow the Holy Spirit to move, speak and reveal more of Jesus to you. As you listen to all the songs that are part of these devotions we know you’ll experience the awesome presence of God.
Day 1 - O Come To The Altar (Elevation Worship)
I love musicals, unashamedly so and would boast in knowing the lyrics of many well-known tunes; from The Sound Of Music, The King & I, West Side Story and ‘Oliver!’ they were all well loved. Apart from ‘Food Glorious Food!’, I loved the scene and song ‘Who Will Buy’ when different street sellers would come out and sing to sell their produce or service. It contrasted the earlier song ‘Boy For Sale’, from sad and laboured to bright and cheerful. In the time that Oliver was set, young orphaned children, were traded, bought and sold to work in homes/factories and it got me thinking about a beautiful song we sing ‘O Come To The Altar’.
It’s a song of surrender and both verses ask questions or bring us to action, to do something. Verse 2 always stands out for me particularly, it says this:
Bring your sorrows and trade them for joy
From the ashes a new life is born
Jesus is calling.
When we come to Jesus, He asks us to trade with Him, to exchange, to surrender. And He’s not asking us to trade precious things for something rubbish. He asks us to bring our sorrow, our pain, our hurt, our disappointment, and to trade them for His joy! I LOVE that.
Jesus died on the Cross so that we might be free, live free, and have life forever and eternal with Him. Isaiah 53:4 says this:
Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.
Jesus took all of our sorrow, our weakness all on Him. The Cross was an exchange of my life for His. God traded His Son for us, for you for me...and through Him, accepting His forgiveness and submitting to His Lordship in our lives means a new life is born!
I think it’s so easy sometime to bring our sorrows to God, but we refuse to trade...we either see ourselves as so far from being helped, that we try to give Him our rubbish and just run...but He wants to trade, He wants to exchange the hurt for His joy – and what an exchange! It costs us a life surrendered to Him, but we receive so much more – His grace, His love, His peace, His provision, His wisdom...I could go on!
It’s good to return to an altar, to surrender ourselves to God afresh at different moments in our life. Do you need to come to Jesus again? Have you become too comfortable with Jesus – is He really Lord, have you really surrendered every area of your life to Him? Come to Him today, trade your sorrow for His joy.
O what a Saviour! Isn’t He wonderful – sing hallelujah, Christ is risen
Bow down bore Him – for He is Lord of all – sing hallelujah, Christ is risen
Think about / Meditate on:
Thank God today for who He is, thank Jesus for the exchange He made on the Cross, thank the Holy Spirit for His prompts and moments of awakening you to what God is saying
Bring any concerns, sorrows, needs to God and trade them for His peace, His joy – all that you need today – surrender your life afresh
Ask the Holy Spirit to refresh and fill you anew
Link to the song: https://youtu.be/rYQ5yXCc_CA
Written by Senior Pastor Charmaine