All I Have Is Christ.

The other day I had to submit an assignment for school talking about some type of extra-biblical art form (song, poem, picture, etc.) and talk about what it says about the spiritual life, and how it impacts me personally. I was kind of dreading writing this assignment. I didn't know what to reflect on; I knew I wanted to reflect on a song, but I love music so I didn't know which song I would choose. Once I decided on a song, it was easy to put together five hundred words for this assignment. I was so happy with what I had written that I decided to post it here. The song that I decided on was "All I Have Is Christ".

Enjoy!

“All I Have is Christ” was written in 2008 by Jordan Kauflin. He is an artist with Sovereign Grace Music, and has also been a pastor in Arlington, Virginia since 2010. According to their website, Sovereign Grace Music has had forty-six albums (as well as EPs) released starting in 1997. That seems like a crazy amount of music to be releasing, so it’ll probably help if I mention that over the years there have been thirty-nine different artists writing for the group - twenty-three of them being songwriters, as well as there have been thirty vocalists, and ten producers involved with all of that album/EP releasing.

I didn’t hear “All I Have is Christ” until last year, and I have my freshman year chapel team to thank for introducing me to this song. I was asked to sing lead for it, and I didn’t have much notice in regards to learning it, so initially I didn’t like it simply because I was intimidated by singing lead for a song that I didn’t know. Something that struck me about the song right away is that its chorus sounds like an anthem to me; it simply goes like this: “Hallelujah, all I have is Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my life.” I remember joking to my chapel team that this song should be the national anthem for Christianity.

“All I Have is Christ” is so powerful; I can never bring myself to skip it when it comes up on shuffle. I think that one of the reasons why I love it so much is because of how accurate the lyrics are for the Christian life. The first verse talks about being lost, and how I probably wouldn’t have chosen God if He hadn’t chosen me first. The second verse talks about how God saw how helpless I was and led me to Himself, and that “He bore the wrath reserved for me, now all I know is Grace”. The chorus then comes in and is followed by the third verse that talks about my strength to follow God’s commands comes only from Him, asking Him to use my life in any way that He so chooses, and expresses desire to live only for Him. I really appreciate the openness and honesty that is displayed in “All I Have is Christ” and how it walks through being lost and needing Christ, being saved, and then instructs us to live only for Him.

This song has impacted me quite a lot, especially in the past seven months of my life. I’ve lost two people who meant a great deal to me, and I went through periods of depression and pure hopelessness because of that. When I would hear this song, the chorus hit me so hard, just reminding me that I really don’t have anything else in this world other than Christ. That can often be a daunting thought; Christ is all that we have, and everything else is temporary. But the way that that is expressed in “All I Have is Christ” is so beautiful. By putting the word “hallelujah” into the chorus, it’s expressing thankfulness that Christ is all that we have. When I hear this song or sing it, all I can think of is how grateful I am that I have Christ, and in Him I have the hope of seeing my two loved ones (as well as others that I have lost – and still others that I inevitably will lose) again for eternity...that is, if they are Christians. There is so much joy and hope to be found in knowing Christ, and this song always causes me to stop and remember that. I know that we are to be joyfully and expectantly anticipating our heavenly Home but before this past summer, I had never experienced that deep sense of longing. I find it so cool to have that desire now; although I definitely want to graduate, get married, have a family, and all of that adult stuff, I also know that I am only doing all of that in order to “pass the time” in a sense until I get to go Home. Hallelujah, all I have is Christ!