Blog: Ian Yates: Behind The Songs - Really Good News
British worship leader Ian Yates has released a FREE EP called 'Really Good News'. The EP, a follow up to his 'Good News' album released last year, features five songs exploring the good news of the Christian faith.
In this special guest blog for Louder Than The Music, Ian Yates goes behind the songs to tell us what each song on 'Really Good News' is about.
FIRE
This song started off with a picture of seeing the church and myself with a fire in my / our hearts that burned for those who don't yet know the love and goodness of God .
It's about the gospel, it's about the good news that changes lives!
The good news is scandalous, it's outrageous because it's a done deal, it's a fix - we don't have to do any special magical trick or performance or come as someone who has it all together - we just have to receive what Jesus has already done
Receive this glorious love, hope, grace, mercy.
The song is about us / me folding, knowing nothing except Christ.
It's about how this good news has captured us, It's taken hold of us.
It's about that nothing else matters than knowing and being IN Christ
The second verse is a prophetic declaration of the church and the nation - seeing cities on fire, blazing with the glory and love of Christ.
Seeing an army rising up with a passion and fire to see lives transformed and radically changed by this ‘Really Good News’.
HEAVENS OPEN
I had the concept of ‘Heaven’s Open’ for a few years and I’d been really looking at:
Is heaven open?
If heaven is open what does that look like?
And what does that look like now?
In many ways this song is a prophetic / seeing song
Seeing hope, seeing broken lives rejoice, seeing the fatherless find life in a loving Father
It's seeing life / Church and all we see through being in Christ.
Musically - I really wanted to push boundaries on this - This was totally intentional. I wanted to push it with some new sounds and this is what came out.
The song declares:
> That heaven is open
> That the kingdom of God is here
> That all things in possible
> And that living IN Christ and in His presence we have new life
The main theme of the project(s) is about the good news - taking the theme from the album ‘Good News’ and expanding a little with themes of what is a life IN Christ is like.
FULLY SATISFIED
All of these songs have come from the awesome revelation that we are now IN Christ
I’d been spending a lot of time in Colossians 2 and in January I woke up singing 'I'm Fully Satisfied'.
I got my guitar and started singing it - within 10/15 mins the song was finished - the next day we rehearsed it as a band and then we used at a Liverpool event called 'Encounter' on the Saturday night and people really connected with it.
At the risk of sounding controversial I think we’ve sung a lot of hungry and thirsty songs. Many I’ve used and even written. And our desires have been good and pure.
But I feel we need to grasp the truth of the gospel and the awesome, incredible truth that the fullness of God dwells within us. Even if we grasp 5-10% of this it will change us. I think we want to believe it but our experiences can get in the way.
Our shortcomings and our bad days can get us into a cycle we were never designed to be in. I know I’ve always wanted the more, but the reality was I already had the more within me. Rather than trying to get to a place or feeling - I’m believing I’m constantly in that place. The old covenant was about visitation, the new is about habitation.
> We have the fullness within us
> We live in an open heaven
> We live IN Christ
> We live in His presence and the beauty is we are finding out there is more.
More than we ever knew.
He satisfies my soul. He is the only one! I'm choosing to be satisfied in Him, because all I am is found in Him.
PASSION
Robert Capon says:
The Lamb of God has not taken away the sins of some - of only the good, or the cooperative, or the select few who can manage to get their act together and die as perfect peaches. He has taken away the sins of the world - of every last being in it - and he has dropped them down the black hole of Jesus’ death. On the cross, he has shut up forever on the subject of guilt: "There is therefore now no condemnation..." All human beings, at all times and places, are home free whether they know it or not, feel it or not, believe it or not.
It's a song of hope, healing, love.
The passion is for people to know this good news message! - this scandalous, radical love message!
I'M ALIVE
2 Corinthians 5 has being impacting me hugely for the last 6 months - and this song was mainly inspired by that.
Add Colossians, Romans 6 and 7 plus a load of what Paul says and this song comes to life.
The song declares "I'm alive IN Christ" - The overwhelming delight of being IN Christ - of having a new life IN Christ - Of being a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:14 (The Mirror Bible)
The love of Christ resonates within us and leaves us with only one conclusion: Jesus died humanity’s death; therefore, in God’s logic every individual simultaneously died.
It states that if One died for all therefore all died (NIV).
Paul is saying that ALL were included in the death of Christ - that all (Everyone) was included in that death - not one person was missed - God included everyone in that moment.
That the whole world was there.
John 3:16 - God loved the whole world.
2 Corinthian 5:15 (The Mirror Bible)
Now if all were included in His death they were equally included in His resurrection. This unveiling of His love redefines human life! Whatever reference we could have of ourselves outside of our association with Christ is no longer relevant.
Ian Yates
Find out more at IanYatesMusic.com
