The Reason We Sing
Wholeheartedly Worshipping God Through Songs, Old and New
I love to sing. Singing creates a beautiful sound and communicates value in a delightful way. Have you ever stopped to think about singing? Out of all the things humans can do, God gave us the ability to sing! God made you to be able to take any word and communicate it in a melody.
I love to sing…to Jesus. There is no one more beautiful, more valuable, more worthy than God Himself. There is no more beautiful love story than the Gospel. God made us to sing to him—and that is not just in the sound we create but He made it to be the beautiful medium for which to proclaim truth.
I love to…wholeheartedly…sing to Jesus. In 1 Cor 14, Paul counsels new believers in areas of prayer and singing—his context was people were speaking in tongues and not making any sense. It is the same with worship music old and new, we can say beautiful sounding words that we don’t understand. We were designed to sing with body, mind and spirit; we were designed to sing wholeheartedly. Paul explains how he does this: “What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” – 1 Cor 14:15
I love to wholeheartedly sing to Jesus…together with you! God gave us a mind to share our ideas with one another. When we come together we sing, we declare the promises of God’s love for us. Did you know that our joining together to sing was designed by God to bring us together in unity! The instruction in Scripture is that our communication at church edify one another: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” – Col. 3:16 (emphasis mine)
I love to wholeheartedly sing to Jesus, together with you all the more! With this in mind, let us encourage one another with united thought behind the words we sing, and sing to Jesus, together, with one heart and mind. There are old hymns that use words that can be confusing. There are new spiritual songs that use words that can be vague. As we enter a new year, I want to invite you to join in one heart and mind as we take the music we sing, and spotlight key theological foundations.
God loves it when we sing to Him from the heart, together. “May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Romans 15:5-6