Have you heard any of these lyrics in church, or on the radio? They are troubling lyrics — they don’t quite hit the mark. See what you think:
“He’s never gonna let, never gonna let me down…”
“What you say you will do, that is what you will do. I’ve never seen this God disappoint.”
“This is my confidence: you’ve never failed me yet.”
These lyrics are troubling; the doctrine they teach unsound. What are the authors intending?
Are these words meant to be a confession of faith? Is the singer proclaiming belief in God’s faithfulness, or instead, do the troubling lyrics actually call out God’s loyalty to the believer?
A subtle difference, but an important one.
Words like these are upside-down, and they don’t line up with the faith we find in the Bible. They have this in common:
These troubling lyrics seem to assert a belief in a God who won’t let them down, fail them, or disappoint them; a kind of “faith” that God has their back.
But is that kind of “faith” pronouncement really faith? Is it biblical faith? What is biblical faith, anyway, and how does it differ from these attempts from three popular, contemporary, Christian songs?
Biblical Faith
In the Bible, faith is portrayed through men and women who remained steadfast, even under extreme persecution. They remained faithful to God. They knew they were being tested. Proved. And they wanted to pass, to shine. To please Him in all respects.
We learn about Job, who although he lost his precious children, and all of his wealth, (and later, his health) the man would not renounce his firm conviction that God is good.
Job’s response to these horrific losses displays an astounding statement of faith:
Then Job stood up, tore his robe, and shaved his head. He fell to the ground and worshiped, saying:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will return.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away.
Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.
Job 1:20-22
Job believed God. He believed in God’s character, His wisdom, and His plans. He trusted in God’s love and kindness and goodness, though Job could witness little of any of these during his extreme trial.
Another famous statement by Job has been quoted by generations of Christians who refuse to renounce their belief in His goodness:
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Job 13:15a
Pretty amazing, right? And just a little bit different from lyrics that attest that God won’t let them down, and that He won’t fail them.
Job was being tested. Not God. The question wasn’t whether God would fail Job. The question of the day: would Job stay true to his faith in the Lord his God?
Biblical faith:
The believer asserts that God is worthy of trust, no matter what the Lord might allow.
The man or woman of faith asserts that God is indeed good, though this hardship is extreme.
The faithful are faithful because they trust that no matter what is thrown their way; they will still believe He is righteous, that He is love; that His ways are higher than our ways, and can, in fact, be trusted.
Faith trusts in a trustworthy God.
And if that is what these lyrics attempt to convey, then that is just awesome. But, if that is the case, why don’t they say so? Why do they state it in upside-down terms?
For the new believer, or the one who gets most of his doctrine from church and song lyrics, these claims might actually make sense…
“After all”, we might reason, “isn’t God a pretty cool God, one that is ‘there for us’? After all, He died for us, He lives within us, and now His plan is to just kind of hang out with us, watching over us, and assuring us that our future is good. That’s it’s gonna be OK. Cuz it’s way too hard for us. But God knows that and will help us find a way out of anything that is too hard. He’s got our back, so it’ll be alright.”
Right?
Nope. Not even. Such beliefs assure the singer that God is just a sort of bell-boy-Santa-guardian-angel-bro that serves the believer. And that the believer is a helpless weakling, in need of constant reassurance that it’s gonna be OK.
This is upside down. The truth is the other way round. He is the King. We are not. And, he has given us weapons for our warfare, and the authority to use them. Weak? I don’t think so.
Who’s on the Throne, Anyway?
Ideas like these are dangerous, because they teach the counterfeit gospel of self. Lyrics that elevate our happiness and security empower our natural, selfish, tendencies.
We are in danger of placing ourselves smack-dab on the throne of our lives! And if we do this, if we worship anything at all, we worship our idols of comfort, a good future, health, safety, and happiness.
How did we bump God off of His throne? How did we take over, and make ourselves comfortable up there, instead?
It’s a temptation all of our lives, this tendency to care more for ourselves than we do for God, to nurture ourselves rather than others…to live like we believe that God and others are there for us.
Perhaps that is one reason that God commanded us in both the Old and New Testaments, that our first and greatest task on earth, before anything else, is to take our self-worshipping hearts and turn them to God, instead.
Jesus declared,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the first and greatest commandment.
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22: 37-40
When we worship our Lord, in truth, our focus is not on us. When we worship God, we are presenting an offering: Ourselves.
We offer Him everything we are, or will be. We give to Him our lives, our futures, and all that concerns us, in utter trust and dependency upon Him, alone.
The faith-prayer of surrender and relinquishment, are beautiful offerings in His sight.
Better Lyrics
May our prayer rather be, in singing to the Master of everything, the direct opposite of the troubling lyrics found above.
Why not something like:
“Help me Lord, to never let, never let You down…Oh, God, would I be true to You, always.”
“For every trial we face, we know that He is watching us. Oh, may we be ever mindful of Him, not letting Him down, but making Him proud of us, instead.”
“Forever I’ll be faithful, forever I’ll be strong in You. Forever may I serve You, forever and ever, forever.”
“I’ll never give up, I’ll never give up on You! Let me be faithful, faithful, God to You!”
May we run the race to completion, firm in our faith, trusting in His goodness, no matter what.
Worship Our Faithful Lord
We sing to Him out of gratitude for Who He is and what He has done. In creating the world and all that is in it, the universe and the laws we will never understand, He demonstrated His supremacy and glory.
By sending Jesus to teach and to heal and to suffer and to die, to rise victorious from the grave, and to send His Spirit to us, He has earned the right to receive all honor, all praise, all trust in whatever future He assigns for you and for me.
Let us worship our faithful Lord all of our days, in spirit and in truth. After all, He is faithful to remain Who He is.
FAITH
He does not change.
He will always be Who He says He is.
Count on it.
He is faithful to do what He says He will do.
If He said that He would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask, He will.
If He said that if we seek Him with all our hearts, He will be found, He will.
If He said that He has forgiven us, He has.
If He said that He (Jesus) always lives to intercede for us, then He does.
If He said that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him, He is.
If He said that He is preparing a place for us in heaven, He is.
We are Called to More
When we read Paul, and Peter, and Jude, and James, we don’t see them encouraging us to just keep on keeping on, assuring our hearts that it is OK because God won’t let us down, and besides, He’s not gonna give us more than we can handle.
Of course He will. That’s part of His plan–to give us ever increasing challenges, to refine us, to purify us, to make us like His Son.
He knows trials will create endurance, patience, and faith.
He knows the outcome!
We will eventually decide to join Him daily on His plan for the world, warriors ready to engage in battle, to learn from Him and walk closely with Him. We will not want to live even one day apart from fellowship with Him, daily mediating upon His Word.
It is not a question of whether or not He will ever let us down. Our heartfelt prayer rather is that we would please Him always, and never let Him down.
Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
2 Corinthians 5:9
Our instruction from these writers of the epistles is to keep our eyes focused on Him, in all of our trials, grateful for the trials themselves, because they are perfecting us, making us like Him, our Lord Jesus.
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
James 1:2-4
As long as our enemy can keep us focused upon ourselves, he knows we will not be the strong warriors Christ means us to be, joining God in the high and holy calling of bringing “His kingdom come, His will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.”
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3
May the Lord grant His church discernment, in rightly judging which lyrics we hear are in fact in line with His teachings. And may He increase a desire in each of us for His Word, the Bible, that we might more fully have the mind of Christ revealed to us.