Singing Is God’s Idea

By Joe Chesser       I love to worship in song. I always have. My mother instilled this in me at an early age. We of course sang during our worship at church assemblies. But there were many other times when we sang “church” songs together at family gatherings, or with friends, or at area-wide singings, or at Bible camps and VBS. I was privileged to sing with Christian choirs in high school and college, and on several other occasions. Sometimes my wife and I would just open up a song book and sing together. I just love to sing. Singing moves my heart closer to God.     However, not everyone was raised to love singing like I was. Not everyone enjoys singing like I do. And that’s ok. But what’s not ok is to have a negative attitude about singing. Why? Because singing is God’s idea.     In seems that in lots of churches singing is becoming an afterthought, even a drudgery. It seems that some are only doing it because that’s what they’ve always done or because it is an “item of worship.”  It seems that many song leaders just select their songs without much forethought or planning, and that church leaders and church members fail to attach much importance or value to singing. This may be an exaggeration, but my point is to encourage us all to refocus our attention on the fact that singing is God’s idea. And because it is His idea, perhaps we need to reevaluate why He wants us to sing, and even more so, why He wants me to sing.     Singing is not just for those who can sing well. It is awesome and inspiring when singing is beautiful, and we should work at singing the best we can. But a beautiful sound is not the main point. According to Colossians 3.16 the reason for singing is for teaching and admonishing one another with the word of Christ that dwells richly in our hearts. Certainly we can teach and admonish each other without music. That what preachers and teachers and parents do. But it’s God’s idea to also do it with singing. God knows music has a way of moving and influencing us in ways that nothing else can. Different kinds of songs (psalms, hymns, spiritual songs) teach and admonish us in different ways than merely speaking the words can do. When music is combined with spiritual lyrics, we can be affected deeply as we make melody in our hearts (Ephesians 5.19). PLUS, we can impact others, and that is one thing God wants us to do in worship, according to the above Scriptures.     So, let’s be encouraged to give God our best in worship by singing to each other as we allow our own hearts to make melody to God. Let’s be encouraged to pay more attention to the lyrics of the songs so we can all be moved closer to God.

- Joe Chesser preaches for the Fruitland Church of Christ, Fruitland, MO.  He may be contacted at joeandareva@yahoo.comg