Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing in His grace with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Many believers in Jesus are fighting with one another and have divided over who is right. But I told you My answer through My servant Paul, who dealt with divisions in the early church among Jewish converts, gentiles, and among those who decided they belonged to Paul or Apollos or another apostle: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:12-13. All will know you for My followers by your love one for one another, all members of the Body of Christ, not by how you tear each other apart. If you have taken My Son as your Lord and are believing in your heart that I raised Him from the dead, you are saved and made righteous. No one is right, no one is wrong, all those who love Me, their heart is a song—a vast symphony of the Body of My Son. Each life a song, all lives together a symphony of blended harmony that flows along in My Song of Songs.
I accept the sincerity of your heart, even when you are not entirely right, and even when you are way off like Paul, then Saul, was, but My Holy Spirit will get you on track. He guides you to all truth, which is My Word. Always check a teaching or tradition of men with My Word. Some things they attribute to Me as pleasing My sight are odious to Me as the curse and works of the devil, but they are doing it from love and trying to please Me, so I am not angry. I try to lead all, and like a good Shepherd I pull at the sheep who keep trying to eat garbage. I want them to feast on green healthy pastures and living streams of life-giving water.
I admonish you to speak with one another and to yourselves in psalms and hymns and inspired (Spirit led) songs, singing and making melody with your heart to Me, always giving thanks (the voice of thanksgiving) for all things in the Name of your Lord Jesus Christ unto Me, your Father forever. Ephesians 5:19-20. Let My anointed, life-giving Word richly dwell within you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing in My manifold grace with thankfulness in your hearts unto Me, because I am singing over you. Colossians 3:16; Zephaniah 3:17. Whatever you do today in word or deed, do all in the Name of your Lord Jesus, giving thanks to Me through Him.
Do you know why you offer thanks and praise to Me in, with, and through Jesus? Look back at the offerings for sin, shame, guilt, thanksgiving, and peace in the Old Covenant as a shadow of which Jesus is the substance and you will understand. I told the Israelites when they came to enter My house to make offerings and sing praise, “You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep which has a blemish or any defect, for that is a detestable thing to the LORD your God.” Deuteronomy 17:1. It all has to do with your offering. Do not bring a lamb that is blemished and corrupted by sin, no, but bring a perfect lamb that can atone for you. You must come with and through Christ into My house and then into the Holy of Holies and not in your name alone. You cannot come in on your own merits for all have sinned and fallen short of My glory, but you can come in with His merits as your own when you bring Him as your sacrificial Lamb, for in Him you are made perfect, holy and blameless in My sight, without blemish or any defect of sin remaining. Anything else you offer without Him is profane fire and will consume you, for it is fueled by the fire of hell. It is pride and I resist the proud but give grace, abundant grace, to the humble.
When you make melody unto Me in your heart and sing songs of praise and thanksgiving throughout your day and night, your songs become a hedge, a wall, around you that the enemy cannot penetrate. Why? I have put My Words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of My hand (“you who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, Psalm 91:1) to establish your world. I am your hiding place (“seter” in Hebrew, a secret, hidden place of refuge and safety filled with treasures) (“I dwell in the secret place of the Most High,” Psalm 91:1). And when you are born again in Jesus of Me, I keep you and the evil one cannot touch you. 1 John 5:18. There is no snatching out of My hand. John 10:29. David sang to Me, “You are my hiding place (seter), You preserve me from trouble, You surround me with songs (“ron” a ringing cry, a loud and joyful song of deliverance and victory) of deliverance.” Psalm 32:7. I am your bulwark and your shield, your fortress, and your refuge. But you must join the song, the symphony of the Body of My Son. Do not make an entrance into your hedge through which the devil can take territory in you.
David sang, “I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I did not hide; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD” and You forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah.” Psalm 32:5. I want you to look at the last lines of this verse in Hebrew, I think it will make you sing too. David sang, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” The word translated “confess” there is the Hebrew word “yadah.” “Yadah” has many meanings and you see it translated by different words in English in different contexts in the Bible so you do not realize it is the same word. It means “to throw, cast, confess, giving praise, giving thanks, glorifying, hymns of thanksgiving.” It comes from the word “yad,” which means “hand.” It literally means to use your hand to throw at or away, especially to revere or worship with extended, lifted hands. Do you see? That is how you are to confess your sins, not in horrible remorse and fear that I no longer love you, but with complete openness and repentance of heart with praise and hymns of thanksgiving for My merciful love as manifested in Jesus taking away all your sins and bearing the punishment due them in your place.
You will be surprised where I first use that word in the Bible, and first mention is important, it is Genesis 29:35. It is when Leah, ready to birth her fourth son of Jacob, decides she really cannot please Jacob no matter what she does, so she lifts her hands to Me, throws that burden and heartache off her and says, “Now I will praise the LORD!” And she names the baby born Yehudah (Judah), and she incorporates the word “yadah” into his name. Later, in Leviticus when “yadah” is used it is translated as “confess,” i.e., “confess he has sinned.” Leviticus 5:5. And in Leviticus 16:21 it is used as confessing your sins over the scapegoat. And you know whose shadow that is. He took your sins and became sin for you all. This again shows the joy of repentance knowing that all is taken care of by Jesus.
And one more Hebrew word there that I want you to consider. Where David sings, “And you forgave the guilt of my sin,” the word translated as “forgave” is the Hebrew word “nasa,” which means “lifted, took, carry away, rising.” Do you see? Jesus took your sins and lifted them off you. He carried them away from you and took the punishment for them. Come to Him, all you who are burdened, and He will give you rest, for His yoke is easy and His burden light. I am the God who bears your burdens, just cast all your cares on Me because I care for you. And that is something to sing about!
Look ahead with praise to all your days and they will come to you in the beauty of holiness.
I love you. Surround yourself with song, songs of deliverance, praise, thanksgiving, and blessing. It is the best protection and it is the best connection to My throne. You enter My gates with thanksgiving and My courts with praise.