This morning I was listening to “Only Jesus” by Brian Johnson. At one point, the lyrics state, “For me, For me, only Jesus.” Other songs follow a similar pattern where there is a combination of worshipful lyrics directed to God and lyrics spoken to oneself.
Why would we want to speak to ourselves, “For me, only Jesus” right after we were glorifying God in first person by telling Him how He is full of glory or some other type of confession of how great He is?
This isn’t an issue of songs being confused. The issue is that we get confused when we aren’t focused on Christ. When we focus on worship in the safety of our homes or at a congregational Christian service, we are intentionally focusing on activities with the spiritual aspects of life in mind. On any ordinary day, we aren’t always looking at life with the same “spiritual” perspective.
Worship lyrics sometimes capture this lack of focus by seeming to “tell ourselves” to do something. “Bless the Lord, oh my soul” is a psalm telling oneself to bless God.
Similarly, “for me, only Jesus” is telling oneself to only focus on Jesus, which is akin to Paul stating that we should take every thought captive.
So if you feel as though there is a spiritual struggle in your mind or thoughts, remember that worship focuses your attention on Holy God and sometimes you need to “capture” any thoughts that divert your attention to Him, even if seems like you are talking to yourself!