First of all, I wanted to clarify that the surrender of our lives to God are not glorious moments where we display this awesome sacrifice of our precious vessel to God. In all reality, we are handing Him broken clay pots. It is not that we are ornate or priceless pieces of pottery. Yet we sometimes celebrate the surrender of someone’s life as though it is. Honestly, the things that should fire us up is that God would want us! The fact that He is fired up about taking us and using us is truly amazing and astounding! Sometimes I think we tend to get that backward.

Secondly, the song seeks to point out the wonderful truth that our surrender is not our loss and God’s gain. When I give it all to Him, I never lose anything! There is truly a peace that can’t be explained when I lay it all on the altar. God is SO good!

The more I read, studied, and prayed, the more overwhelmed I became. I began to understand the depths of God’s mercy and grace in a way that I had never begun to understand before. The holiness of God and the sinfulness of man became clearer and the immensity of His love grew wider. It became more and more difficult for me to understand why my Savior would come and die such a brutal death for me. Yet, in the process, it gave me all the more reason to rejoice in His wondrous love.

After teaching a series on the gospel to my youth group, I sat down one evening and wrote the lyrics to this song. In the song I wanted to express my inability to completely grasp the truly incomprehensible glories of the gospel. I further wanted to express my disgust at how many times I have ‘moved beyond’ the gospel and sought to live in and through my own strength. You see, these living and immortal truths that bring salvation will continue to exhilarate, guard, and empower believers to live to honor and glorify Christ.

I further wanted the song to enunciate the core truths of the gospel. I found it motivating that so few Christian songs articulate a complete gospel message. I was desirous, therefore to express the truths simply yet completely. The gospel begins (i.e. the first verse) with a clear understanding that I am vastly imperfect and have no right to stand before the perfect God on my own. This provides the need and the proper backdrop for the cross. When Jesus died he endured the furious wrath of God, which was stored up in lieu of punishment for the sins of mankind. Our victorious Lord did indeed satisfy the demands of sin and exhausted God’s righteous wrath. His tomb stands empty to this day to declare that sin and death no longer hold any power of those that are in Christ! Thus I can stand before a Holy God…righteous as His son. Having repented of my sin and placed my trust in Christ alone for salvation, God redeemed me, forgave me, and imputed to me the righteousness of His perfect Son Jesus Christ! This knowledge is truly beyond anything that I know!

We should never move beyond the gospel. We ask you to consider the gospel for yourself again. I trust that it will move your heart to sing, “Halleluiah, what a Savior!”