Storytellers: "Make Me Holy"

The song, “Make Me Holy,” is a song that I wrote probably a year and a half ago. It was one of those songs that was birthed out of my personal quality times with God. In my own desire for holiness, I felt like I kept coming up short.

I wanted two specific things in my life:

Consistency
Obedience

By consistency, I wanted to know that I was striving to live holy not because I needed to earn God’s love, I wanted to live holy because of Christ’s love. But I wanted to be consistent. I wanted my level of holiness when I was around other people to be the same level of holiness of what God knew about me.

I had just attended a Passion conference when I heard Francis Chan say these words: “If I asked your church about you, what would they say? Whatever they would tell me about you, that is your reputation. If I asked God about you, what would He say? Whatever He would say about you, that is your character. And if your reputation and character don’t match up, you are a fake.”

I was floored by that statement. I honestly wanted to be holy: “From everything that others may see, to what is known only by You and me.”

But I also wanted to strive for obedience. As I led worship at our church, I noticed something – songs rarely talk about being obedient to the commands of Scripture. Songs that focus on sin can sometimes be abstract. I wanted to worship to God and declare that I wanted to be obedient to those precious commandments in Scripture and I didn’t want them to be a burden to me (1 John 5:3).

The song was originally written in piano. I played this riff over and over and just changed the bass notes. I love the way the key of F# sounds – even though it is hard to play in – I just love it sonically. I sat down at the piano and just started working through these words. I played it once after a message of Jeff’s in January 07. But I didn’t want to play it. I felt like that song was the perfect way to end his message, but I just am uncomfortable about playing originals. I know that there are a ton of better songwriters out there. But over the last year, our services have sometimes called for a song that strictly communicates – our problem is that we are disobedient to God’s commands. Its not that we feel bad or that we want to be better people. We just want to be doers of the Word.

When we went to the studio with the song, I know I wanted Jodie to sing it. Jodie has one of the purest voices I have ever heard, and I thought her voice matched the message of the song. She tore it up. The band did a great job coming up with parts and making this sound like a song we had played for years (even though we had never played it together until after recording it). This song is actually Anthony’s favorite track on the CD, and I am so honored that Jesus let me be a part of it.

I hope you enjoy it and it calls you to be a doer of the Word! Here is the demo of the song and some chord charts: