Sing to worship God

https://odb.org/2023/11/09/sing-for-victory

I’m currently in Langkawi island, the largest island in Malaysia, for a team building event with my fellow lawyers from my company’s group legal department. We had a gala dinner last night, and our chief, the Group General Counsel, sang a few songs with the lead singer of the 4 piece live band we had. When I heard the songs sang. I realised that I had limited repertoire of non-church songs, whether oldies or contemporary, rock, pop, or jazz, that I could actually sing and perform. I realised that I had never properly learnt even a simple and popular oldie like Stand By Me. The reason is probably that in my past 40 years’ journey in music, I have mostly played and sang worship songs. If you want to be an accomplished musician, this is certainly not the way to go as we need to learn the standards to expand our skills and repertoire.

However, if you are a believer, singing and playing worship songs have their own distinct benefits. As we learned today from 2 Chronicles 20 during King Jehoshaphat’s time (one of the few God-fearing kings Judah or Israel had), he won a battle purely by worshipping God, with singers and musicians. There is power, authority, and victory in worship! That is why churches always start off services with praise and worship as worship ushers in the presence of God. It lifts our hearts and prepares us to see and experience God in the spirit. Corporate worship is a powerful means to get into the attitude of heart to experience Him in a worship service, especially on Sundays.

On top of that, worship can be at the personal level, and as we worship God on our own, we will usher in His presence and may well taste victory like Jehoshaphat did. It is easier to worship if we could play an accompanying instrument like a guitar or a piano, but that’s not a prerequisite. We don’t even need to pitch well (sing in key) as personal worship is our own personal time with God to recharge our batteries and hear from Him.

The message this morning is that we must cultivate a habit of worshipping God, particularly as part of our quiet time with Him. Cast our troubles and worries unto Him and trust in His unfailing love that is renewed like dew every morning. Sing songs of praise and worship, sing from the bottom of our heart, and bless Him for He alone is worthy of our worship! Amen!