Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16.
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourself in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. Ephesians 5:18-19.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. Psalm 95:2.
Surely in a flood of great waters they will not reach him. You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Psalm 32:6-7.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
There are places in the Spirit that you cannot access but through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing a new song! When I reach down to pull you out of your pit to place your feet on a height I put a new song in your mouth, a song of praise unto Me, your deliverer and your God. Psalm 40:1-3. I share songs of the Spirit with you in worship.
And that is today’s Life Lesson, “Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs,” in this series of My teachings on how to live the beautiful life of worship in the present age, being in the world but not of the world in the sense that you have a higher calling and source. Come up here where I am—the throne of grace—and your perspective will change. And as you sing the songs of the Spirit your demeanor, your expression, the energy of your life will change. You will become a radiant light in the world. Why? You have touched the Holy and the Holy has touched you.
You may ask whether Jesus sang, you know Paul and Silas did from the glimpse I give you into their singing of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs chained in the jail at Philippi and the result was complete deliverance for them and all the prisoners who were listening to their songs. And Paul in his letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians counsels you to do the same. But to answer the question, yes, Jesus did sing and still does. In Heaven they are singing the Song of the Lamb. Revelation 15:3. And I give you a glimpse of His songs on earth at the Passover meal on the night He was betrayed, at the conclusion of the ceremonial meal, Jesus and His disciples sang hymns, “After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” Matthew 26:30; Mark 14:26. And during His earthly sojourn as one of you in the flesh, He would spend whole nights in worship with Me and there were songs we sang. Yes, I sing. I surround you and preserve you with songs of deliverance. Psalm 32:7. I sing over you joyfully as one does at festivals. Zephaniah 3:17. And as you awake in the night, I sing songs of the night over you. “The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life.” Psalm 42:8. “You will have songs as in the night when you keep the festival, and gladness of heart as when one marches to the sound of the flute, to go to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.” Isaiah 30:29. But are you listening and picking up the wisdom in the song or are you worrying instead so that your ears are sluggish, deaf to My voice, and closed to the answers and help I long to sing into your spirit? “But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night, who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’” Job 35:10-11.
And if you open your Bible to its very center you will find you are in the book of Psalms. This should speak to you of what should be the center of your life—worship with your attention fully on Me in the realm of seeing and knowing so that you will not be defoolish in how you live each day, but understand what My will is. Ephesians 5:17. That is, the plans I have prepared for your life that you might walk in them.
The name of the book of Psalms in Hebrew is “Tehillim (תהילים)” which means “praises.” And that is what they are, and I am enthroned upon (I dwell in) the praises of My people. Psalm 22:3. The word for psalm in Hebrew is “Mizmor (מזמור).” Psalms are spiritual poems that are sung, chanted, or spoken musically with stringed instruments. Along with psalms, I also speak to you of hymns and spiritual songs as how you become filled with the Spirit so that you see and hear in the spirit how to walk. Hymns are songs of praise that are addressed to Me out of your spirit. Spiritual songs are sung in your spirit by My Holy Spirit and you give them utterance. Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs give you revelation and result in prophecy.
Do you recall that when Jehoshaphat went in answer to the call for help to fight the king of Moab of the king of Israel, Ahab’s son Jehoram, they ran into difficulties and Jehoshaphat asked to hear from a prophet of Mine to inquire of Me what to do. They called on Elisha. Do you remember what Elisha did to see into the spirit and hear the words of deliverance? He called for a minstrel to play upon his stringed instrument and when the minstrel played, My hand came upon him and he prophesied exactly what I would do for them that would give them victory. 2 Kings 3:15-19. And it turned out just as I said for a miraculous deliverance and victory. 2 Kings 3:4-26.
In communicating with Me in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs from your heart you get into a spiritual flow that raises you out of the flesh realm of worldly intellect and thought patterns to the renewed mind of the spirit realm. It opens a portal, a channel, into you from Heaven, by which you are drawn up higher and I am drawn down to you. It is the avenue between Heaven and earth that Jacob had a glimpse of as a ladder joining Heaven and earth in his vision on the mountain that was later to be Temple mount, the place where I instructed Abraham to offer Isaac. Jesus later let the disciples He first called know that He was that way, that ladder, by which angels descent to earth and ascend back to Heaven, now through and in you. And in this channel, I pour revelation and prophecy. It is in this flow that the grace endowments, the power gifts, of the Holy Spirit, will become operational in your life on a consistent basis.
Why do I tell you to continually make melody to Me in your heart? Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs usher you into deeper areas of the Spirit. They take you through doors of utterance that you cannot otherwise access. Praying in tongues is an excellent way to get into the spirit realm and hear from Me, but without psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs—which can be sung in tongues and with your understanding, you will not fully enter. Praying in the Spirit, that is, tongues, leads to the pouring forth of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs in your spirit, and this takes you to the place of seeing and knowing (like when Jesus said He only did the works I showed Him), and this takes you into the place of greater manifestations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, then the operation of the these gifts becomes evident in your life, such as a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, faith, effecting of miracles, prophecy, gifts of healing, discerning of spirits, tongues and the interpretation of tongues. 1 Corinthians 12:8-11.
To worship in this way you must first have a good foundation and broad base in My written Word, that is, the Bible. If you don’t know My Word you cannot worship in Spirit and truth, for My Word is truth. And you cannot sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs if they do not have My Word in them, otherwise they are often filled with the deceitful doctrines of demons, which sound religious and holy but really lead you to think wrongly about who I am and do nothing to take you out of the flesh realm to the spirit realm. They give you no victory in places of trouble, addiction, or impurity, though they may appeal to your emotions. My Word has to dwell in you RICHLY for you to sing Word songs of the Spirit. “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Colossians 3:16.
When you have renewed your mind by hearing My Word and growing it in your heart until you are firmly rooted and grounded in My Word as your firm foundation, you can grow up by worship into the perfect person in Christ I created you to be. And it is then we become partners and friends, for you will know by the Spirit what I am doing and you will do likewise.
And continuous melody to Me in your heart of psalms, hymns, and inspired songs filled with My Word by the Spirit, will bring you into a life in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Addictions, impurity, and other encumbrances that do not bless your life will fall off like the chains did in the prison cell at midnight for Paul and Silas.
Therefore since you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at My right hand. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in Me. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. Reject these if they come into your mind and put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self, for that is who you are as a new creation in Christ, and renew your mind in My Word to a true knowledge of who you are and who I am and that you are made according to My image and likeness for Christ is all, and in all.
You chose Me and I had already chosen you to make you holy, blameless, and beloved, without fault or reproach before Me in Christ. So walk in who you are in Him and put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as I forgave you by the shed blood of My Son, so also should you forgive, for Jesus paid the ransom for all. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed I have called you to be in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to Me, your forever Father. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks for and through Him to Me in worship. Colossians 3:1-17.
And then when a flood of trouble comes in, you will already be in the fortress, the secret place, where it cannot enter, for I surround you with songs of deliverance, and it is in those songs you will hear the answer, you will see and know what to do for the victory. You will find grace for help of a higher dimension.
I love you. And that is why I sing to you. That is why I give you My Song of Songs, it is an entire book in the Bible, and it is a love song, My love for you and your love for Me in our garden enclosed. And what do I tell you in that Song? That the song of the Dove has been heard in your land. Song of Songs 2:12. And then I tell you to arise to that song and let Me see your face and hear your voice, for you are lovely and your voice to Me is sweet. Song of Songs 2:14.
O God, You are my God; I shall seek You early;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.
When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches,
For You have been my help,
And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to You;
Your right hand upholds me.
Psalm 63:1-8.