Your Love Defends Me

Matt Maher's recent song "Your Love Defends Me" expresses his faith in God's love for us. In this song, Matt and his band adeptly blend music and lyrics to bring us into the love of God, and to open our eyes to the breadth of God's love.

Matt Maher

Highlights

By Norm LeDonne
Christian Rock Musicality SSL (https://www.christianmusicality.com)
7/23/2017 (7 years ago)

Published in Blog

Keywords: Matt Maher, Old Testament, New Testament, St. John, Psalms, Isaiah, Christian rock, Christianity, Bible, Your Love Defends Me

a href="https://genius.com/Matt-maher-your-love-defends-me-lyrics" target="_blank">The song begins "you are my joy, you are my song", recalling the prophet Isaiah speaking of God (Is 12:2-3).

God indeed is my salvation;
I am confident and unafraid.
For the LORD is my strength and my might,
and he has been my salvation

(As an aside, Matt's reference to "song" may also reflect his medium of choice for spreading God's message, the medium of music.) The lyrics then express that God is the well from which we draw living water, the grace we need to grow holy and closer to God (Jn 4:13-14).

Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again;
but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

As the song continues, Matt calls God his refuge, again recalling Old Testament scripture (Ps 18:3, Ps 46:2, Ps 91:1-2).

Psalm 91
You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shade of the Almighty,
Say to the LORD, "My refuge and fortress,
my God in whom I trust."

The first verse ends with the question: "where else would I go?". Here, the music in the background increases in pitch with each word, suggesting that we look up to heaven, to God as our refuge.

The subject of the chorus reflects the overall message of the Bible: God loves us. We can trust God. God will give us the strength that we need to fight sin in all of its forms. And God is always with us, never leaving us alone. His power will defend us; He has already defeated the powers of hell.

The second verse incorporates the subtle use of electric guitar to provide an appropriate atmosphere to the lyrics. While Matt sings "day after day, night after night" the guitar adds a sound somewhat reminiscent of background music in horror movies, evoking our instinctual fear of the night, and is followed by lyrics which remind us that God is with us in the fight against evil, reinforcing the theme of the first verse. The second verse then continues with "Although the battle, it rages on"; again the guitar in the background subtly suggests a battle. As the verse ends, the penultimate line asserts the message known to all Christians that the battle is already won, again with music that rises in pitch telling us to look up to heaven. However, when Matt ends the verse and sings "I know the war is already won", the music in the background suggests the relief that accompanies victory.

The bridge is quite interesting musically. "We sing Hallelujah" is sung on the beat of the music. However, in order to emphasize God's primacy in our lives, the lyrics "You're my portion, My salvation" are all on the off beat, breaking the previous rhythm of the bridge, beckoning us to pay extra attention to these words. In keeping with the strong scriptural basis of this song, the reference to God as our portion again incorporates texts from the Psalms (Ps 16:5, Ps 119:57).

Psalm 16
LORD, my allotted portion and my cup,
you have made my destiny secure.

The theme that Matt is expostulating in this song is to rely on and trust in God. God loves us. He will defend us always. He is our strength during the trials of our daily lives. Jesus trusted in the Father and was glorified. If we trust in God, we too will be glorified.