Day Nine - Appreciate Worship

1 Chronicles 16:29 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

                  The word that is translated worship in the Old Testament literally means to bow down,  to lie face down.  Worship is an attitude of the heart that bows in the presence of God.  Worship is seeing God and seeing ourselves in His presence.  We give Him the glory that is due in name and that is due is work.   We come before Him and we seek Him.  Worship means exalting Him.   By definition,  worship is not about what pleases me.  It is not the music that I like.  It is about praise that exalts His work and His Word.  The Bible teaches,

Colossians 3:16 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.

In the context, our songs and our hymns must allow the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly.  The songs must teach and admonish and give wisdom.  They are also about grace.  We are gracious to people because God is gracious to us.  He describes the singing with three words,  Psalms,  hymns and spiritual songs.   The fact that he uses three words, declares that not all songs are the same,  not all singing is the same.  God is worshiped in different ways and in different types of music.  Obviously the hymns that he is referring to are not the hymns that were written by John Newton or Fanny Crosby.  The Psalms were the songs that were sung in the days of David and were carried over into the worship of the Jewish people throughout their history. 

God allows us to have the words to those Psalms,  but He did not allow us to have the music.  The melody of the Psalms is probably different from the melody of our day but also different from the melodies of the Wesleys or the Gaithers. 

It is very important that we learn to appreciate music that touches the hearts of people as they show their love and devotion to God.  An older person loves hymns and we need to appreciate the hymns that God has used in their lives.  Younger people like praise songs,  and as older Christians we need to appreciate the music that brings honor and glory to God in their minds.  Worship is not about us,  it is about Christ,  but it is also about others.  Other people need to be important to us,  and how they exalt the Word of God and the work of God needs to be important to us as well. 

An Exercise to increase our Faith:  Open up an hymn book and select an old hymn that you have heard.  Write down the words of that hymn that teach principles and portions of the Word of God.  Also,  write down the words that bring glory to God in the work that He has accomplished in redemption and in bringing people closer to Christ-likeness.  Are there words in that song that speak to you?  Are there words that make you desire to draw closer to Christ?