Michael Gabriel Monroe
Michael Gabriel Monroe was born and raised in Chile before calling Seattle home where he regularly leads and writes music with his home church, Canyon Hills Community Church. His songs for the church come from the lens of navigating his faith journey. Monroe explores more difficult topics of lament and struggling through faith while holding hope and joy in tension. Sonically he blends organic, digital, and atmospheric elements with potent, poetic lyricism, seeking to catalog a multi-dimensional worship journey, with songs for every day of life, along with Sunday morning praise.
My new song, “By The Love,” is an anthem of freedom.
The love of Jesus changes everything. John 8 gives us a glimpse into that love. This passage tells us that Jesus was teaching at the temple, and a crowd began to gather. The Pharisees brought a woman that they had caught in adultery before the crowd. At this time, the punishment for that sin was death by stoning. Jesus stooped down and began to write in the sand. The religious leaders demanded an answer from him on what they should do.
What is Jesus’s reply?
“Let he who is without sin throw the first stone!” One by one they dropped their stones and slipped away. When it was just Jesus and the woman left, he said to her: “where are your accusers? Didn’t even one condemn you?” “No Lord.” She said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” And he continued to teach the crowd that had gathered. Jesus IS love. He cannot change that about himself—nor would he want to. Later on in John 8 he tells those same people who witnessed this, “If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Have you internalized this? Has the son set you free? If he has then you can stop carrying shame you were not meant to carry. You can stop carrying guilt.
You can stop looking at yourself the way that you used to be and start looking at yourself the way that God sees you—clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. Jesus is love.
I hope this song helps you and the people around you remember that if the son sets you free, you are free. If the son sets you free you are new creation.
The old is gone. The New has come.
Live in that freedom! A full redemption—a transformation. By the Love.
Michael Gabriel Monroe | By The Love
Lead “By The Love” with your congregation