[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

It still sad that we're stuck with the first part even tho we have the second part.

One reason I find much of CCM to be essentially maudlin treacle is that it's stuck in the first part. According to the CCM songwriter, Jesus is high up in heaven, and we're down here on earth, either waving our arms ecstatically in "worship" music, or we're confessing how poor and miserable and needy we are. The recent song posted on this site, with lyrics by Jeremy Camp, was exemplary of the genre.

Looks like a boy's in trouble again
Living much too close to the edge of sin
Now he finds himself where he should not have been
Oh God why is Your peace so hard to find
And the answer to the questions that haunt my mind

Oh Lord, Your ways are not like mine

Chorus:
And it pounds like thunder within in my breast
All the anger of my humanness
And though I call You "Lord" I must confess
I'm a stranger to Your holiness, a stranger to Your holiness

Can we really be what we were meant to be
Jesus' people, living by the Spirit and living free
My heart longs to serve, but wanders so aimlessly
Oh Lord You deserve every part of me

CHORUS

Hear my cry of desperation as I see the wickedness of my ways
You alone are my salvation, and Lord I've learned this one thing to be true
Is that the closer I get to You, I see I'm a stranger (to Your holiness)
Don't wanna be no stranger, and it burns like a fire.

The whole point of the gospel is not to fixate upon "the wickedness of our ways", but to see Jesus. Let me go back to the text of the Psalms: "in the midst of the 'ekklesia' (church, assembly, meeting) I will sing hymns of praise to You." This quote from Psalm 22 was shown in the epistle to the Hebrews as: "In the midst of the assembly, I Jesus will sing hymns of praise to You, Father." It is not "In the midst of the assembly I Jeremy Camp will sing hymns of praise to You Jesus".

Or course we do praise and bless the Lord Jesus. But we do so because the Lord Jesus leads us back to the Father. The focus of the church meeting is Jesus Christ, in our midst, leading us home to the Father. The focus is not we the miserable sinners (Jeremy Camp) or we the spotless Bride (Witness Lee). The focus of the meeting is on Jesus Christ bringing us home to our Father. It seems to me that Witness Lee typically ignored the first part, of our sinfulness, and is therefore stuck there. It was if, for him, the idea of sin to the "NT believer" was passe, or irrelevant. Jeremy Camp's song seems to be just stuck there. "Miserable me!!" But I believe that the focus should be that Jesus Christ came to the first part (sinful humanity) to bring them to the second part (the Father's house).