I used the Matrix scene where Neo fights Morpheus to describe how our talk about relationships can distract us away from the Gospel. The scene came to mind again as we were singing LSB 411, “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light.”
I’m not publishing the lyrics and paying the royalties for this copyright, so feel free to look it up in LSB or check this site for the lyrics. Note, interestingly enough, that the person who favorably posted these lyrics walked away from the faith. If this was all he was getting, I can’t say I blame him.
Pr. McCain at Cyberbrethren rightly said that we shouldn’t tear pages out of the hymnal, but I would leave this one out of the next one.
There is an irony in hymns like this. We desire to be with God, to walk with God, to do what Christ would have us do, only when we have already received the faith and only when the Gospel is proclaimed. Apart from Christ we do nothing and are at constant war with God.
Our joy in being saved comes not from celebrating the feeling that we are saved — a faith in our faith, as it were. We have no business magnifying ourselves. Our joy comes from the objective and unchangeable reality that Almighty God paid to save us from eternal wrath through the atoning sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Yet we sing, “I want to walk…I want to see…I want to look at…I want to follow…”? With nothing in the hymn addressing what has been done for us to generate this reaction?
Is this a celebration, or an admission? There are more questions here than answers.
I feel yucky.
It gets worse – the CPH Hymn Selection Guide encourages pastors to sing this hymn at what seems like almost every service. I had a little rant about it here: http://www.esgetology.com/2008/03/31/lsb-hymn-selection-guide/