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Lenten Devotional

April 17, 2019

All Day

...singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs...

Colossians 3:16

Put On

Gospel Melodies

In these verses Apostle Paul provides a simple yet powerful instruction on living a joyful and victorious Christian life. He is encouraging the Colossian church (and us as well) to adopt a lifestyle of praise and worship to the Lord.

Echoing the message to the Ephesians he shows that singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs is one of the ways to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18-19)

Psalms are scriptural lyrics or poems sung or spoken to God in worship; hymns are humanly inspired songs of thanksgiving and praise directed to God or about God.  Spiritual songs are Holy Spirit-inspired, spontaneous rivers of praise, springing from the inner being of the believer. These songs spring forth from within our hearts out of a revelation and manifestation of the joy unspeakable as we experience the truths about God’s love, his grace, his holiness and his awesome glory and power. As Colossians 3 teaches, meditating and being saturated with the Word of God triggers the singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs in our hearts. Therefore, let us make abiding in the Word of God a priority in our lives.

We are urged to maintain an attitude of praise and worship regardless of the situation we are in─ in times of joy as well as in times of trials. This is possible when we believe and know in our hearts that the true source of our joy is our salvation, our relationship with the Heavenly Father through Jesus and the indwelling presence of his Holy Spirit, and not our external circumstances.

When his disciples returned rejoicing after performing mighty miracles such as healing the sick and casting out demons, Jesus cautioned them that their joy should not come from miracles but because their names have been written in heaven. (Luke 10:20)  He was saying that the gift of salvation is the greatest miracle and thus should be the prime reason for our joy. Apostle Paul refused to allow circumstances to dictate his joy and could rejoice while in prison and exhorted the church at Philippi to rejoice always. Likewise, we are encouraged to maintain a joyful spirit even in the midst of adversity, for the Lord is our light and our salvation. Let us joyfully sing and draw waters of life from the wells of salvation.

Praise and worship is also a mighty weapon of spiritual warfare that we need in our fight of faith. Throughout the Scriptures we can see numerous instances of deliverance and breakthroughs as people of God are engaged in praise and worship. The supernatural collapse of the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6), the miraculous deliverance of the nation of Judah under Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20) and the spectacular prison break of Paul and Silas (Acts 16) are a few great examples of the power of praise and worship.

The Bible says God dwells in our praises and calls us to enter into his presence with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. This is an act of faith that we have to intentionally take. I like the way one preacher puts it that “praise releases grace and brings God into the race.”

Prayer:  Dear Father, you are good and your mercy endures forever. Help us to rejoice in your salvation and always be filled with your Word and Spirit as we sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and make melodies in our hearts to you.  Amen.

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