God is a Song

 

A friend can recite entire SONGS and Bible passages from memory. Another friend says she memorized Scripture by making songs out of the verses. I’m not good at rote learning or turning words into music. For me, rote becomes reciting words without understanding and music is a foreign language rather than an easy talent. However, repetition is changing some of that.

Every morning I sing praises to God for at least ten minutes from printed lyrics. I can now sing many of them without looking at the paper. Sometimes I wake with a song in mind or think of words during ordinary activities. Several OT passages say God not only puts songs in my heart, but He is my song.

Exodus 15:1–2. “Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, ‘I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.’ ”

All through the OT God’s people praised Him and celebrated His goodness with music. Dozens of verses testify how His people responded to the victories He gave them with a song. God even told Moses to write a song as Deuteronomy 31:19–22 says.

“Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” So Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the people of Israel.

Songs of victory are in Judges and 1 and 2 Samuel, notably when David returned from battles. These included joy and musical instruments. David was inspired to write many of the psalms as were others. Solomon authored 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs (see 1 Kings 4:32).

David “put men in charge of the service of song in the house of the Lord after the ark rested there. They ministered with song before the tabernacle of the tent of meeting until Solomon built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they performed their service according to their order.”

Obviously praise directed to the Lord finds its source in Him and has a purpose. Psalm 40:3 says,

“He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”

Those songs from Him are prayers as Psalm 42:8 says: “By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”

I wondered about the value of music and found scientific proofs of what music does, from the obvious lifting of our moods to the startling — it makes us eat less. Some music has a negative effect. For instance, loud rock will kill plants (no joke) and a beat more rapid that a normal heart rate is agitating.

I’ve also noticed that it isn’t so much the words or the tune but the hearts of the performers. Those who do ‘great music’ for the sake of their reputation as a musician do not bless the human soul in the same way as the person who sings to glorify God or even to bless those in the audience. Not everyone will notice these differences. So the question is: At what point does the art detract from building the body of Christ to affirming the arrogance of the individual artist? Three ways can evaluate whether a song is from God or not . . . .

One, as our Song, God gives music that establishes or re-establishes interpersonal relationships called koinonia or Christian fellowship. God’s songs bring Christians together as we focus on Jesus and not ourselves.

Two, His music builds a godly self-view, affirming we are made in the image of God, that sin separated us from Him, and that Jesus Christ and God’s grace brought us back — made new to reflect who He is by the way we think, talk and live.

Three, God’s music has a way of using rhythm to energize and bring order. He is a “God of order, not confusion” thus as our Song, He calms chaos and clears confusion.

Both Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 point to music coming from the heart. It is not necessarily talent and beauty but a God-focused sincerity filling with praise and thanksgiving, even if the words say other things. Like prayer, a song in my heart is one more way to GAZE INTO HIS GLORY!