Video: Only Your Blood is Enough (Ukulele Cover)

Missed church with HBC yesterday due to being on lockdown from opthalmic shingles. I feel fine but the doctor (and Cheryl) both suggest not infecting other unsuspecting people with the chicken pox virus

So instead of gathered worship, we sang a few hymns and I read some Valley of Vision, then worked out this song for our family hymnal.

Sojourn Music’s Neil Robins wrote the words and music, and it’s adapted from Isaac Watt’s Psalm 51 Part 2 From Sojourn’s “Over the Grave” album.

From the Sojourn Music blog:

Neil Robins, who also produced, sang and played a variety of instruments on  Over The Grave, wrote “Only Your Blood Is Enough,” adapted from “Psalm 51, Part 2″ by Isaac Watts [you can read the original here]… It’s a fun song to sing, with a bridge that gives both guys and gals a cool part to sing – something we don’t often do with songs in Sojourn. Beyond that, it’s simply a great, meaty song about the cross of Christ – only His blood is enough to cover our sin. As Mike Cosper told Sojourn’s Dominic Gratto, in an interview for our quarterly news journal  Travelogue:

“I don’t have a favorite song (on the album) but I have a favorite lyric. It’s from the song “Only Your Blood Is Enough.” The lyric is, “no bleeding bird, no bleeding beast, no hyssop branch, no priest, no running brook, no flood, no sea can wash away this stain from me.” It comes from Psalm 51 where the psalmist says that if God had desired a sacrifice, He would have brought it.

When we were recording that song, I told Neil that, because of the way the song is mixed, it would make a great pop song. Apart from the lyrics about a “bleeding bird” and “bleeding beast,” I could really see Christian radio stations picking it up – but they don’t want to play songs about bleeding beasts. It’s a little too graphic for them, but I think it communicates a really powerful message.

I also like how this song draws out the ideas that King David originally wrote (original and actual sin, atonement from God Himself, regeneration of the heart). Not many worship songs help point out the futility of our own sacrifices, and Psalm 51’s words (though a bit gross sounding to our ears, bleeding beasts etc.) drive home the point that it’s only God’s own blood that can pay for my sins.  Played it down at F (from G, which is a bit high for me)

Lyrics:

I am ashamed, conceived in sin, I’ve always been.
Born in a world where Adam’s fall corrupts us.
Rooted is the seed of death in life’s first breath.
The law demands a perfect heart, but I’m defiled in every part

For only Your blood is enough to cover my sin
Only Your blood is enough to cover me

All this guilt disturbs my peace; I find no release.
Who will save me from my crime? I’m helpless.
Behold, I fall before Your face in need of grace.
So speak to me in a gentle voice, for in Your mercies I rejoice.

For only Your blood is enough to cover my sin
Only Your blood is enough to cover me

Lord, create my heart anew (Father, come and make us wise)
Only You are pure and true (Lead us away from our demise)
Lord, You are the remedy (For only your blood can set us free)

For only Your blood can set us free; only Your blood can set us free

No bleeding bird, no bleeding beast
No hyssop branch, no priest,
No running brook, no flood, no sea
Can wash away this stain from me

For only Your blood is enough to cover my sin
For only Your blood is enough to cover me

Words by Isaac Watts and Neil Robins
Music by Neil Robins, 2009

If you’re interested, this is Sojourn’s much more polished recording: