"Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."
Ephesians 5:19-21
Part 1
Being “filled with the Spirit” is one of the graces that enables the child of God to be a useful servant to the Lord. Without it, there’s nothing of eternal consequence that we can do for the Lord. The verse before these verses is essential.
“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit,” (Ephesians 5:18).
In the three verses that follow this, we can see three things that are important to our being “filled.”
SPEAKING, GIVING THANKS, and SUBMITTING.
“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;”
As believers, we are to be speaking among ourselves with music that praises the Lord. This statement carries the weight of command for God’s children. Even during Jesus’ ministry, this was the pattern for the disciples to sing together the praises of the Lord.
“And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives,” (Matthew 26:30).
This practice of singing praises together continued in the churches in the public worship.
“What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also,” (1 Corinthians 14:15).
The songs were sung “with the spirit” [“with my spirit”] and “with the understanding” [“with my understanding”].
No mindless singing by rote without any thought! The brain must be engaged as we sing; we are thinking about what we are professing in our songs.
Our praise to the Lord is on our lips, but it must be focused from our hearts.
“For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding,” (Psalm 47:7).
To “sing ye praises with understanding” is to sing songs from the heart, the seat of the emotions. It is to understand what we are singing and to know personally the One to whom we are directing these praises.
We are to be singing and making melody with songs, hymns, and spiritual songs. This is to be done together and directed to the Lord.
Today we’ve thought about “speaking—singing” truth to each other about how great our God is. Being “filled with the Spirit” is impossible without this!
Come back tomorrow when we talk through:
SPEAKING, GIVING THANKS, and SUBMITTING.