Singing to the LORD

A week into the resurrection, and our world has already forgotten the magnificence of it all. When I say our world, I am referring to the Christian world. In the Church, many of the feasts we celebrate should remind us of the matchlessness of God, His might and His omnipotence. These should cause our hearts to fear Him, be in awe of Him, submit to Him and praise Him. Like the psalmist, we should sing joyfully to the LORD for it is fitting for the upright to praise Him (Psalm 33:1). Granted, we may not always grasp the depth of what Christ has done for us and we may not always be thinking about it because of the demands of life and the distraction the world brings. However, singing praises to the LORD is something we can do and have control over to help us to never lose sight of who God is and what He has done for us. I was personally struck this week by the revelation that praise is fitting for the righteous, that praise is for the righteous to do and not doing it is a disservice to who we were created to be and a disservice to God. In today’s post, I would like to draw your heart to the wonderful tool that praise is for the Christian.

The Bible gives us many reasons to praise the LORD and if we are truthful, we know that we do not even need to be given reasons to praise the LORD. There are many expressions used in the Bible to signify praise. These are “praise”, “extol”, “sing”, “glorify the LORD”, “boast in the LORD”, “exalt the LORD”, “ascribing to the LORD”, “rejoice in the LORD”, to list a few. These expressions all show us different ways to praise the LORD, they give us a different understanding of what it means to praise the LORD. We know from these that praising the LORD entails rejoicing in the LORD, it entails boasting in the LORD, it entails singing to the LORD, exalting the LORD and so on. These expressions also show us that there are levels or layers to praising the LORD. Praising is an act of worship, and the object of our worship is the LORD. Songs have a way of stirring our hearts to the object of the song and they have a way of helping us connect to it fully (mind, body and soul). Praising the LORD with songs allow us to be completely free, to participate fully and to be real before the LORD. This is something that you can start to do reluctantly and as you carry on your whole posture changes to the point of you now being happy about it. We may not always “feel” like praising the LORD; we may not always want to sing to the LORD but whenever we do, we are always glad we did. I am yet to find someone who regretted singing to the LORD. There is something about turning our focus to the LORD in songs that lift our spirit in such a way that our own worries, problems and difficulties vanish. This is where the psalmist wants us to get, and this is where the LORD wants us to arrive at because He made us for worship.

Because we were created for the LORD, when we are not focused on the LORD, our lives are heavy with burdens we were not meant to carry. When we are not focused on the LORD, we subconsciously take the place of God in our life and the lives of others. In such cases, we quickly see our insufficiency, our lack and we become even more weary of things we cannot change. The creator of the universe, the ruler of all things saw our misery from the very beginning and He in His lovingkindness decided to intervene and make a way for us to drop our burdens on Him and receive His rest (Matthew 11:28-29). He did this by sending His one and only Son Jesus to die on the cross in our place so that the punishment that our sins deserved was inputted on Jesus. There was a transfer at the cross where Jesus took our rightful place, and we took His. Because Jesus received our punishment, we received his righteousness and right standing with God which means we can now stand in the presence of God. We who were enemies of God because of our sins have become friends of God because of Jesus’s blood offered on the cross on our behalf. However, this way God made for us is ours to receive when we acknowledge our sins and repent of them and when we accept that what Christ did on the cross was for our own benefit and receive Him as our saviour and redeemer. Doing this is a step of humility where we relinquish any sort of rights we thought we had on our lives and letting Christ rule over it all. In fact, when we submit to Christ, we are submitting to God and going back to the original order of things: God is above and we are below. This allows us to accept His yoke and receive His rest. The moment we do that, we can finally be free of trying to control everything, trying to have an answer for everything; we can happily submit our worries to the LORD, patiently waiting for Him because we know He is able to handle any situation. When we come to the LORD, or should I say, when we return to the LORD, we realize our true position as sheep that the Good Shepherd delights to care for. Indeed, it is not always easy to remain focused on the LORD or to have our eyes fixed on our Redeemer at all times but singing praises to the LORD is one sure way to help us remain focused on Him.

After hearing all this you might be thinking to yourself, “I am not a good singer”, or “I don’t know what to sing to the LORD about”, or “I’d rather not sing because I don’t believe the words I am singing at the moment”. Whatever your reason might be for not singing praises to the LORD, I would encourage you to still sing. The LORD sees our hearts above all things. The moment is always “now” to do what we were created for. Many of the psalms are great starting places to sing to the LORD. Psalms 8, 9, 33, 107, 111, 118, 136, 145, to list just a few give you many reasons as to why praise the LORD and what to praise Him for. Remember, you were created for God, so it is fitting for you to return to your One true love through songs that are directed at Him. The more you engage in this exercise, the more your heart will be stirred, the more your love for the LORD will abound and the more the LORD will dwell in your praise (Psalm 22:3). May the LORD through the Holy Spirit lead us into singing and extoling His praises continually. Amen!