The word “worship” has, over time, become more directly associated with singing and music than with anything else. Of course, there are many ways to worship, such as praying and reading the Word. For this devotional though, we will look at singing.
This past Sunday, we examined three of the many reasons we have to worship our God. We worship because he is good to us, he saved us, and he will return for us. We sang songs and lifted praises in response to the Word, and it was a great Sunday. But if singing and music aren’t really your thing, you may wonder why we would do something like that. Or you may be asking yourself, “Why do we sing in church at all?” Well, we sing because God is good to us, he saved us, and he will return for us.
He has been so good to you. Everyone has a different story, and some are in tougher spots than others, but if you really look at your life, it isn’t hard to see where he as been good to you. Are you healthy? Is your family healthy? Look at what you have around you. Has he taken care of you in hard times and brought you through? Are you alive? There are so many ways we can see how he is good to us.
He saved us. God saw us and knew we needed a savior. He loves us so much that he gave his only Son to die an awful, gruesome death for us. It’s a death we deserved, but Jesus took our sin and shame upon himself and gave his life for us. Take some time to think about what that means. Think about how much love it must take to do that for someone.
He will return for us. He has promised an eternity for us who have placed our faith in him and accepted Jesus Christ as our savior. Eternity in a place where we will see his glory. There will be no more pain or grief. We will not be surrounded by this broken world but, instead, by eternal joy and celebration.
But you may still ask, “Why sing to worship? Can’t I do all this a different way?” Well, of course you can. But we sing because we are commanded to sing. There are over 50 times in the Bible where we are commanded to sing — mostly in Psalms, but also twice in the New Testament.
… be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart…
— Ephesians 5:18-19
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.
— Colossians 3:16
People offer all sorts of reasons why they don’t sing in worship, including:
“I don’t really enjoy singing. I’m just not the singing type.”
“I can’t sing! The person next to me might hear me, and that would be embarrassing because I’m so bad!”
“This isn’t my style. Where are the hymns?”
I’m sure it sounds like I’m poking fun here, but these are legit reasons for not singing that people have expressed. And you know what? We get it. We understand how uneasy it can feel to step outside of your comfort zone. But we hope that you will be able to push past your personal feelings and see that singing is an act of obedience. We sing in obedience, with thankfulness in our hearts, because of who God is and what he has done. We sing to be filled with the Spirit. We sing for others around us to be filled with the Spirit.
I love how the people of c|Life sing and worship. If you’ve been kinda hanging out on the fringe of that, or not participating at all, I encourage you to just go for it. Jump in with both feet because, if you are at c|Life, the odds are good that everyone around you already has, too!