On Praises and Songs to Our holy Lord: In heaven there is perpetual worshiping of God. The angels never cease their praises and songs. The praise songs we sing here and now are only a shadow of heavenly praise in eternity.
This has been a recurring theme at Zeteo 3:16. We feel that we as Christians need to focus more on our worship of God.
Practice makes perfect?
“We Shall See God” is a devotional book put together by Randy Alcorn. It draws heavily on Charles Spurgeon’s thoughts on heaven, which is the book’s theme. In the Chapter Rehearsing For Heaven he writes that,
Music has a great power to connect us to God. There is music in Heaven, but if we want to be part of the great song, we’ll need to start practicing the melody now.
As a reference to that he cites Spurgeon: “It is said of all worshipers in Heaven that they learned the song before they went there.” Spurgeon placed a high value on singing hymns. After all Jesus’ disciples even sung in prison (Acts 16:25-31).
Terrible singing
In fact Spurgeon was critical of those who didn’t sing well and wouldn’t learn how to. What would he say if he stood next to me as we sang? Well, I’m glad he never is! Not only am I a terrible singer but I’ve always struggled with “attention deficit.” Of course this might be me being undisciplined, as usual.
However, I take comfort in what Michael Reeves gently and wisely notes in “Rejoice and Tremble.” Christians can be prone to despondency when they feel a lack of usefulness. What about that poor aging person in a nursing home? I’ll also add: what about the Christian who can’t speak or who has a speech defect? Or who is a lousy singer like me? Reeves points out that: “the Lord takes pleasure in those who [rightly] fear him.”
A Merciful God helps
All this said we ought to try our best to sing praises to God. It’s for our own good. I recently had an experience I won’t soon forget. As we sang songs at church it seemed that something changed (at least for that short time). Suddenly I was vocalizing well, and following along, while the words were penetrating within me. I was paying attention.
People in the front were raising their hands. I’ve never been a hand-raiser in public. Perhaps you are. But my hands were clasped in front of me and I felt that joy as I sang! Through my peripheral vision I noticed that the old man to my right had also clasped his hands and brought them up to his chest. As I sang I briefly looked at him. His eyes were closed and there was an expression of adoration in his face. I know the Holy Spirit helped me sing that morning, I bet He helped others as well.
In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words... Rom 8:26
And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.” Rev 4:8
Maranatha!
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