Pleasing God in Music, Part 2

In Part 1, I talked about pleasing God with our music. Today, instead of publishing another hymn story, I want to talk about the place where pleasing God with our music starts: our hearts.

Keep in mind that the music that we sing at church, whether we are singing a special number, as part of a choir, or sitting in our pews, has two directions: ourselves, and God. Colossians 3:16 says: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

The first direction is to each other. We are teaching and admonishing each other. All things are to be done to edifying, Paul said in I Corinthians 14:26, so that is one goal of our church music.

However, the primary direction, which I mentioned in Friday’s post, is God. We are to be “singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” God not only hears us sing with our mouths, he sees the condition of our hearts. This is where pleasing God begins.

Man sees the outward appearance, but God sees deeper (I Samuel 16:7). He sees our motivation: are we singing to be praised by men, or to express praise to God? Are we singing because we are required to in church, or are we singing because our heart is overflowing with love for Him? He sees, He knows, and He cares: He cares if we have grace in our hearts as we sing, or if our hearts are cold and hypocritical. He cares if we are making melody in our heart, or just with our tongues.

Pray before you go to church this Sunday. Ask God to help you sing to Him with your spirit, and not just with your voice. Ask God to help you focus on Him as you sing. Ask God to touch your heart with the words of a song, and move you to praise Him genuinely.

Then go worship with the congregation, your heart singing with the psalmist David: “I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High” (Psalm 9:1-2).