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Monday, August 16, 2010

Behind the Music: "Lucky One" and the Love of God in Christ

God has blessed me with a new friend who is very talented musically and also happens to write and play music that I like (which is not easy, because I'm picky!). Wayne Haines was most recently the lead for the band Lost in Rotation, which has some good stuff on itunes but most of their best stuff (in my opinion) is available only on CD at this point. If you're interested in hearing it, I can get you a copy of "Greatest," named for their best songs but also for the One they sing about.

Wayne and I worked on a song together recently (I helped with the lyrics)...you can listen to it at
and then come back here for a look at the lyrics and some "Behind the Music" info on the meaning of the song (see if you can figure it out yourself before I tell you). I like the song and hope you will too, but I like the main idea behind it even more, because it is my only hope for this life and the one to come!

Here are the lyrics to "Lucky One." Read them through and see if you can figure them out, and then I'll tell you the meaning below...

Your debt’s been paid in full
Even though you broke the rules
Nothing that you can do
Could pay for the sins inside of you

You’re an adopted son
An heir of all the world
You’d run the race and won
Before you had heard the starting gun

You are the lucky one
The lucky one is you
You are the lucky one
The lucky one is you
You are lucky one
There’s nothing you can say or do
You are the lucky one
The lucky one

No worries in this world
Safe in the Father’s hand
His grace will take you from
The wilderness to the promised land

Though you may suffer here
The pain cannot compare
The weight of glory there
Will make it all seem as light as air

You are the lucky one…

There’s no such thing as luck
No blind role of the dice
Nothing I have done
Just the Father’s love for Christ

I am the blessed one
A fortunate son
I am the blessed one
A fortunate son
I am the blessed one
There’s nothing I have said or done
I am the blessed one
The blessed one

The perspective of the first two verses of the song is that of a non-Christian who has a friend who is a Christian, and knows a lot about the promises in the Bible that are made to those who believe, like his friend. And it seems to him that his friend is just plain lucky to have all these great things going for him, because he knows his Christian friend well enough to know that he is a sinner too, and does not deserve any of those good things. In fact, a lot of times the Christian isn't any better than the non-Christian, and sometimes he's worse! But yet according to the Bible the Christian has all these great blessings from God even though he has done nothing to earn them. So he is, in the eyes of the non-Christian friend, the "Lucky One"...he can't see any other explanation than that.

But then in the bridge and final chorus the Christian answers him and says that although he does not deserve all these blessings (the non-Christian is right about that), it's not actually luck but a "deeper magic" as C.S. Lewis talked about in The Chronicles of Narnia. The reason that the Christian receives all these blessings is "just the Father's love for Christ," and that leads me to one of my favorite ideas in the universe, if not my favorite...

God the Father loves His Son Jesus Christ with an infinite and perfect love, and He planned to bestow every spiritual blessing to all who are united with Christ by faith, not because of anything we have done, but because of what Christ has done by identifying with us in His incarnation, taking our sins upon Himself on the cross, and rising from the dead so that we would have a new life through our union with Him. So the reason God loves us and gives us all good things is not because we deserve it (we deserve the opposite), or even because we are made in His image (we have marred that image through our sin), but because He loves His Son and has graciously included us in Him and the love He deserves. A helpful analogy is that I understandably have no special love for a kid named Brent that merely goes to school with my son, but if he becomes my son's good friend, I will have a special relationship with him and even treat him as part of the family. In a similar way, by being "in Christ" we are adopted into God's family and receive His special saving love.

Now read Ephesians 1:3-14, a passage that you may be familiar with, but perhaps have not notice how repeatedly it makes this point that all the blessings of God's saving grace come to us "in Christ" (the two most important words in the Bible, occurring over 50 times in the New Testament, and three times as much in other forms with the same meaning):

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things upon the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation--having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory."

Now that you know more about the meaning behind the music, listen to the song again at http://www.myspace.com/floridawaynemusic and praise God for His glorious grace!

2 comments:

  1. Dave,

    Your closing paragraph was spot-on. Simply wonderful! God's grace, to me, cannot be defined accurately enough. It is something that is simply experienced. (But you did a nice job describing it!)

    I have realized that worship is actually just spiritual warfare, (like we are taught in The Scriptures), and the more that we, as Christ-followers, endeavor to be His "balladeers", the more impact we have on The World and The Bride.

    I'm not saying we need to become some mamby-pamby hippie-fied patchouli-stinking emotionally-driven feminine-based worshippers, No. Worship, while done in mostly quiter tones, is like a roar, really. There is nothing wussy about it.

    Standing firm, in song, worshiping and exalting The LORD, above all else...oh yes. Power, indeed.

    Love the blog, by the way. I shall be visiting again.

    Donald Borsch Jr.
    Bethel, CT
    http://www.christiancommentator.wordpress.com/

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  2. Love your comments, Don. I hope you will visit again!

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