Thanks for all the recommendations. I did end up finding a couple artists I enjoyed. I couldn’t help but post this video. I saw it at Extreme Theology and just had to post it. This guy is very honest and authentic about his feelings toward Christian music, and I tend to agree with him:

I got a bunch of iTunes gifts cards for Christmas, and I have found a couple albums I am currently enjoying, but for the most part, a lot of Christian music sucks. Almost every worship song is playing the same 1-6-5-4 chord progression in the key of E, and most Christian sub-genres look and sound the exact same as their secular counterparts. I thought Christians were to be “in the world, but not of the world.” Is the Christian music industry an exception? Where are the creative artists?

I’ll be reserving my iTunes gift cards until I get some good recommendations. For now, these are some Christian artists I have been enjoying:

• Derek Webb
• Shane & Shane
• Indelible Grace Music
• Caedmon’s Call
• Scott Phillips

What artists have you been enjoying? Any recommendations for artists that glorify God and don’t try to look and sound like the status quo?

I went to an excellent Scott Phillips concert Saturday night at a local church. Scott is traveling throughout the country partnered with WorldVision, reminding the Church that She is an organism – not an organization – and showing the world the hope, freedom and love that can only be found in authentic Christ-centered community. To get a feel for his sound, combine the acoustic complexity of Shawn McDonald and Shane & Shane with the authentic, witty lyrics and storytelling experience of Derek Webb, but in a new and refreshingly unique way. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying his albums since the concert, particularly the organic heartfelt sound of his album “Love and the Like”. But the song that really struck me during the concert, which is incidentally the topic of this post, comes from his new album “Next Stop Willoughby”. Here are the lyrics to A Nursery Rhyme by Scott Phillips:

There is a man in me who is already free
And I’m just waiting
For him and I to meet; he’s who I’m meant to be
But I’m still waiting

And somewhere underneath, beyond what I can see
A heart is beating
A heart as pure and clean as newborn babies’ dreams
I feel it leading

And all because…
Chorus:
Mary had a little Lamb – his fleece was stained with blood
And everyone who killed the man
Was the target of his love
Oh-oh, oh-oh

Its enough to know that I’m a son in the battles yet to overcome
Its grace transcending
Because the war is already won, you know the bleeding and the dying’s done
Oh brother, what a happy ending

And all because…
(Chorus)

Bridge:
Every crime in my history, every crime that is yet to be
Disappeared when I first believed, whoa oh oh oh
So when the sun shines down on me, when the dark overshadows me,
Everywhere I’ve yet to be, the Lamb is sure to go
The Lamb is sure to go

That chorus blew me away when I first heard it, not only on account of Phillips’ lyrical genius, but also because of the profound truth that we have become new creatures in Jesus Christ, He has given us new hearts, and one day our sinful nature will be entirely eradicated and we will dwell with Christ forever in perfection. The battle of the flesh vs. our new hearts in Christ is familiar to every Christ follower. The daily struggle between the two is best described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:14-25 (ESV):

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Paul accurately captures the concept of the flesh by calling it “the sin that dwells within me” in this passage. Conversely, he refers to the new heart as his “inner being.” He doesn’t divide his nature in an attempt to eradicate his own personal responsibility for sin, but rather to explain the reality that we have to live with these two natures until we die and are united with Christ in perfection.

But isn’t my heart evil?
Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I continually point out aspects of Christianity that no longer effectively serve the Church (the people not the steeple), of which there are many. But aside from church architecture, monologue sermonizing, fakeness, and many other things the pastor-CEO’s teach, one of the most dangerous teachings in modern Christianity is that our hearts are evil. I’m not talking about nonbelievers here, Scripture makes it clear our hearts are evil apart from Christ. I am talking about once we become Christians. Pastor-CEO’s primarily base this off of Jeremiah 17:9, which says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (King James Version). This really is not an accurate translation of this passage, however. The passage would be more correctly rendered, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV).

Without Christ, the heart is certainly desperately wicked, but when we receive the indwelling Spirit of God, Jesus gives us a new heart. He promised this to His people long ago in the book of Ezekiel. Speaking of the new covenant in the Messiah, God said:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. –Ezekiel 36:25-27 (ESV)

‘Flesh’ in this passage merely refers to our physical being. But notice two phrases: “I will give you a new heart,” and “I… will cause you … to obey.” The Apostle Paul again offers an extremely helpful explanation. He says that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV). Very simply put, because of Christ I am a new creation and can now choose to live from my new heart. I am no longer bound by my flesh in its hostility to God and inability to please Him (Romans 8:6-8), I can now choose to obey, and His Spirit even causes me to obey.

Christ’s perfect righteousness gets credited to my account, and when God looks at me He no longer sees my shortcomings and fleshly desires, but He instead sees the holiness of His Son, Jesus Christ. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV). We will never be free from our fleshly nature while here on earth, but we have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead available to us in order to die to our flesh daily and choose to follow Christ and walk in His Spirit (Ephesians 1:19-20; Romans 8:11; Galatians 5:16).

And that’s all because Mary had a little Lamb. His fleece was stained with blood. And everyone who killed the man was the target of his love.