Psalm 149:1: “Praise the LORD! / Sing to the LORD a new song, / And His praise in the assembly of saints.”

June 3rd, 2024 by Pastor Ed in devotional

God wants to constantly give us new songs to worship Him with so that our worship is always alive and fresh. Too often believers get stuck in a certain style, like certain praise songs or certain hymns, and they live in the past. If worship is not fresh, it will become mechanical; but new songs remind us that God is working now and speaking to His people. David tells us that God desires creativity in “new songs” and wants us to join Him in creating and developing these songs. New songs that have never been heard before, original, distinct, newly fashioned, and designed by us, just for the worship of Him.

Sometimes we can sing a “new song” simply by meditating more closely on the words we’ve grown so familiar with, remembering again the truth of them. There is a true story from Broadway that illustrates this. One night in New York, Mary Martin was preparing to go on stage, as she had a 1000 times before, in Rodger and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Just before she took the stage a note was handed to her. It was signed by Oscar Hammerstein, who was that evening on his deathbed. The note was short. It read simply: “Dear Mary, A bell’s not a bell until you ring it. A song’s not a song until you sing it. Love in your heart is not put there to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.” When the play was over, the cast rushed her backstage and asked, “What happened? We’ve never seen you perform that way before?” Mary read to them Hammerstein’s note and said, “Tonight, I gave my love away.”

“LORD, we love You and desire to give our best to You this day.”