30 DAYS OF PRAYER | DAY 23 – Praying to be a People that Sing with Thankfulness in Heart to God!

Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

In a letter to a house church in Colosse, the author (most likely Paul) goes to great lengths to remind them that Jesus is the center of the Christian faith. Colosse was faced with the challenge of keeping the faith while immersed in a culture that was bending, blending, and shaping Christianity to fit personal views and preferences. There was a joining of Christian teaching with Jewish and Gentile culture that began to stray from the foundation of saving faith in Christ alone. We are faced with the very same challenge in our churches today. We are tempted to wrap our faith in Christ in a seemingly more attractive, palatable, and accepted worldview. We need this reminder just as much as the Colossians did. Perhaps even more.

So how do we hold fast to a faith in Christ and Christ alone? Paul gives us three simple yet profound tools to do just that.

1) Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly: We must be people who value the words of Jesus and hold fast to the infallible word of God found in our Bibles. We hold an incredible tool that the people of Colosse never held. We have the completed canon of scripture. The Old and New Testament, written and preserved, and more readily available at our fingertips than ever before in all of History! Let us heed Paul’s exhortation with the help of the Holy Spirit and let the word dwell in our hearts, our minds, and our speech daily.

2) Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs: Paul goes one step further and tells the Colossians to teach and admonish one another in truth. What is baffling here is that he seems to believe that singing is a very effective way to do this! Have you ever thought about that? We are commanded to sing by God… what a unique way to teach and admonish one another. Singing will help us dwell richly in Jesus.

3) With thanksgiving in our hearts to God:  We are to teach and admonish and sing with thanksgiving in our hearts to God. Oh, we have so much to be thankful for!  We have been given access to the eternal Kingdom of God. Jesus has paid a great price that we might have free access to God FOREVER! Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross. He invites us to embrace this truth and live with him in eternal communion with God. This is worth singing about!

Please join us in praying that Redemption Church would be a people who dwell richly in the word of Christ, who teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and who sing… oh, that they would sing LOUDLY of the wonders of Jesus Christ and all that he has done for sinners like you and me!

This post was written by Chris Clark, Guest Worship Leader at Redemption Church.

–January 12th is a very big day for Redemption Church! Thank you for praying with us! For more information about the launch of Redemption Church and how you can pray for us, please click here.