To Encourage You

Psalm 89:1 “I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever; with my mouth I will make known Your faithfulness to all generations.”

One of the things I remember as I was growing up was how my mother would always be singing as she went about her work around the house.  It wasn’t loud, but it was so often there – she had a melody in her heart, and it was evident to me as I listened. 

Do you realize that music is a spiritual thing?  It’s a gift that God has given us to express things that are in our heart in a way that words alone just can’t do.  Christians are singing people.  That’s the way it’s always been. Singing is one way we can obey the Lord, for it was He Who told us to “be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart (Ephesians 5:19).”

Of course, like everything else that God has blessed us with, Satan has worked to divert us and tarnish these gifts with ungodly substitutes.  Listen to the music of this world in contrast to the songs of the Church. So much of what fills the airwaves today is music that glorifies romantic love that is usually outside the bonds of God-ordained marriage, drinking and other forms of drug abuse, and other forms of sin.  Frequently we hear the word “love” used in the world’s music, but it’s a love that is entirely different than the love that honors the God Who is Love.  And some of this worldly music is filled with explicit profanity or glorification of outright physical and sexual abuse, so much so that there are warnings on the labels to alert parents that there are things contained therein that they may not want their children to hear.  It’s all a spiritual thing, but not from the Holy Spirit. 

You see, the music God would have us fill our minds with is that which glorifies Him and fills our hearts and minds with His wonderful Truth.  So, what are you listening to? What is the music that is touching your heart and mind and coming from your lips?  Is it that which is focused on the steadfast love of the Lord in which the psalmist exults in the verse above, or is that which is focused on anything and everything but?  Yes, music is a spiritual thing, but as with anything else with which we are involved, we have been commanded to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God (1 John 4:1).”