Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs

(This blog post was written by our worship leader, Jeane.)

I know most of you are music lovers, especially those who serve the Lord in our worship team. As one of the topics we've tackled during our last Care Group meeting, we all agreed that we have to be extra careful in choosing the kind of music and the artists we listen to, because it can hurt our spiritual life and our personal relationship with the Lord later on if we listen to music that displeases Him.

As I was browsing old and contemporary christian artists/ worship leaders, I was reminiscing childhood choir memories at church back home. It made me recall the first few years of my life when I fell in love with gospel music. It shaped me in a myriad of ways that truly made me appreciate the beauty of life.

I know this experience is not solely mine. All of us have wonderful memories of Christian hymns and songs and they touch our lives in one way or another. We listen to them on a different occasions whether we want some comfort and healing or we are in a celebrating mood, or we just want to feel relaxed.

I will always feel delighted hearing this Abba classic, "Thank you for the music". Its lyrics and melody is always a crowd pleaser wherever it plays and it's a classic favorite because it's true. It gives us pleasure and joy in it's deepest form. But is it really about us? Oftentimes we forget that God created us for His pleasure. He didn't, doesn't and will never need us nor the world or anything in it to be happy and whole. Not even music. He created us for an eternal relationship with Him. He will be glad to see us put our best efforts to know Him deeply. He will certainly be pleased if we offer Him music that brings great pleasure to Him.

The world might be ever changing so even if we still sing hymns at church, worshipping Him with good, heartfelt modern christian songs that talk about His love and greatness would also be enough to bring Him joy as long as we sing it from the heart and our focus is only on Him and no one else.

Ephesians 5:18-19
But be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and sipirtual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.