Magnificent Prayer #114

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.

Psalm 95:1–2

The heart must have in it the grace of prayer to sing the praise of God. Spiritual singing is not to be done by musical taste or talent, but by the grace of God in the heart. The conscious presence of God inspires song.

The angels in heaven don’t need conductors to lead them, nor do they care for paid choirs to chime in with their heavenly doxologies of praise and worship. They are not dependent on singing schools to teach them the notes and scales of singing. Their singing involuntarily breaks forth from the heart.

God is immediately present in the heavenly assemblies of the angels and the spirits of men made perfect. His glorious presence creates the song, teaches the singing, and impregnates their notes of praise. It is so on earth. God’s presence begets singing and thanksgiving, while the absence of God from our congregations is the death of song, or, which amounts to the same, makes the singing lifeless, cold and formal. His conscious presence in our churches would bring back the days of praise and would restore the full chorus of song.

Where grace abounds, song abounds. When God is in the heart, heaven is present and melody is there, and the lips overflow out of the abundance of the heart. This is as true in the private life of the believer as it is so in the congregations of the saints. The decay of singing, the dying down and out of the spirit of praise in song, means the decline of grace in the heart and the absence of God’s presence from the people.

The main design of all singing is for God’s ear and to attract His attention and to please Him. It is “to the Lord,” for His glory and to His honor.

E. M. BOUNDS

When I cannot pray, I always sing.

MARTIN LUTHER