Travis Cottrell

Travis Cottrell, worship leader for Beth Moore conferences, was at Fegenbush last night. It was the closest thing I've gotten to Bobby, Jason, and Chris/Jason here in Louisville. Too bad Travis is not here all the time. It was a great evening of really great worship songs.

The choir of about 125 sounds incredible. This is a friend of mine Tracy who sang in it with Travis (who is from NC, so she was pretty excited about it).

These are just some of the lyrics that caught my attention:

"hear the angels' awe" - I can think of them in Isaiah 6 singing holy holy holy over and over again. Having a glimpse of the majestic glory of God in his splendor, on his throne. Were we to ever catch that glory as well, maybe our worship would be different as well. Maybe we would be on our faces, or standing with arms lifted so high and stretching out our fingertips because we just can't reach high enough.

We sang two of the greatest modern hymns last night: Made Me Glad, also on a Hillsong CD I have; and In Christ Alone. I love Made Me Glad because it talks about all the things that God promises to be for us: shield, my strength, portion, deliverer, strong tower, very present help in time of need - straight out of the Psalms. Also, In Christ Alone because it is the gospel in one song - such powerful words. How can you sing that song and not understand the worthlessness of us as sinners, but the great love of Jesus for God's greater glory to come and die for us so that we may live to bring him glory?

Travis quoted Rom 12.1-2 from the message. "Quickly recognize what the Lord wants from you and do it." We miss the mark on this in two ways: we don't recognize what the Lord wants from us because we are too busy in our own worlds to read the Word and digest the Word to know what the Lord wants. Our lives are too busy and hectic that we don't spend enough quality time in the presence the Lord, listening, taking notes, beseeching Him to come and dwell in us in a captivating and authentic way. The second way is that if we do know it, we don't do it (at least not immediately). As the pastor of a church said yesterday, why don't we stop asking God to do things in us that He has already given us the power to do: like stop being angry, stop sinning, stop spending too much money, etc. He has given us the power (through the death and resurrection of Jesus) to overcome sin yet we still do it and wonder why we aren't being successful in our Christian walk.

One of the last songs we sang was "Jesus Saves". Amazing song. One of the lines is "see the sky alive with praise". He has and will redeem the creation. But more so...He has redeemed us. We are HIS! We ought to live our lives in daily worship of Him. Authentic to others, focused on Him, not mirroring our current culture. The Bible says to clap, dance, shout for joy...yet in so many churches we sit and don't even nod our head with the beat of the music or tap our foot along to the beat. If the song says Jesus Saves Jesus Saves - that ought to evoke something in us that makes us want to stand and shout - in honor of the one who saved us - not sit there with our hands folded like that phrase means nothing to us.

Anyway...