
Recently, feeling a weight about Nanci’s fight with cancer, I also felt a great need to sense God’s presence and joy. The Lord led me to Psalm 100. When I read verse 2, which says “come before Him with joyful songs,” I realized I rarely sing to Him in my quiet time.
So to get help for this I called up one of Nanci’s and my favorite songs, In Christ Alone. As I sang along, both the song and the sight of thousands of twenty-somethings at the Passion Conference led me into profound worship. I did in fact sing to Him a joyful song.
This is the song I watched and heard and sang. God used it in my life. Following the song is the very short and very powerful Psalm 100, as well as some more verses about how singing can be a means to praise God. I hope this might encourage you too.
Psalm 100, For giving grateful praise.
1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Scripture is full of references to people singing joyfully to the Lord. At every feast and celebration, in public and private worship, singing filled the air:
John Calvin, apparently a student of nature, commented on the last verse, “The little birds that sing, sing of God; the beasts clamor for him; the elements dread him, the mountains echo him, the fountains and flowing waters cast their glances at him, and the grass and flowers laugh before him." [1]
May we do the same!
For more on the subject of happiness, see Randy’s books Happiness and God’s Promise of Happiness, the devotional 60 Days of Happiness, and his DVD series Happiness 101.
[1] John Calvin, Calvin: Commentaries (London: S.C.M. Press, 1958), 60.
Photo by Michael Maasen on Unsplash
Randy Alcorn (@randyalcorn) is the author of over sixty books and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries.