Serve One Another
Serve One Another:
This song comes from King Benjamin's speech in the book of Mosiah. There is so much goodness in this speech it was hard to choose. I considered writing multiple songs from this, but landed on what I always considered to be the main theme of his message, service. I believe that service is the hallmark of a true believer in Christ and Benjamin teaches this quite eloquently.
At the end of King Benjamin's life, he called his people all together to give them his farewell address and appoint his son, Mosiah as his successor. Benjamin built a tall tower so he could look over his people and declare his love for them. And his entire speech is recorded in chapters 2-6 in the book of Mosiah.
He talks about the "natural man" being an enemy of God and the importance of submitting yourself to The Father as a little child submits himself to his father. He declares that we are less that the dust of the earth because everything we have comes from God. From the speech we also learn that they knew that name of Jesus and his mother, Mary. He talks about Jesus and his foretold ministry and sacrifice and asks his subjects to take upon themselves the name of Christ.
One of my favorite Christmas scriptures is found in his talk: Mosiah 3:5-8
"For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases.
And he shall cast out devils, or the evil spirits which dwell in the hearts of the children of men.
And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people.
And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary."
For this piece, I began to think about the relationship of the people to their music and how the music might change over time. With Johnny Cash being wrapped in the Country genre, I figured that maybe we would go a little more country with King Benjamin. In his speech he talks about working with his own hands to serve the people. I always imagined him out in the garden with a hoe in his hand, sweat dripping to the earth as he made another furrow in the ground. So "Where the Green Grass Grows" by Tim McGraw became the inspiration for this song.
