God “seeks” true worshippers (John 4:20–24). God also wants to rebuild David’s Tabernacle (Acts 15:16–17). In the epistles, the Holy Spirit gives us several clarifying directives to help us see what God expects of us practically so we can cooperate with what God seeks and wants. The first group is found in the following passage:
1. Be filled with the Holy Spirit … speaking, singing, giving thanks, and submitting! (Continued from yesterday)
(Ephesians 5:18–21 NKJV) “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, {19} speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, {20} Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; {21} Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
Yesterday, we looked at the first three: “do not be drunk,” “be filled with the Spirit,” “speaking.” Today, we see that the Holy Spirit further instructs us to “be filled with the Spirit” by:
(d) “Singing”
“Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Again, this is something we can all do; we can all sing a little, but even if we cannot sing audibly, we can certainly sing and make melody in our hearts. If we feed ourselves with the right spiritual diet and a wise musical intake, we will find God-songs going over in our heart all day, when we sleep, and when we awake. This will allow his life-force to be a constant stream emanating from our hearts—a “fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14 NKJV).
(e) “Giving thanks”
“Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This instruction is repeated several times throughout the Bible. For example:
(1 Chronicles 16:8 NKJV) “Oh, give thanks to the LORD! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!”
(1 Thessalonians 5:18 NKJV) “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
Grateful people are attractive just as negative, ungrateful people are repulsive. God wants the atmosphere of heaven—and therefore the atmosphere of his church—to be one of gratitude, gracious thanks, and joyful, positive communication. The key to this is of course right thinking:
(Philippians 4:8 WEB) “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think on these things.”
Gracious thanksgiving, gratitude, and encouragement in love should be the default setting for all of our conversations. Then, should the Holy Spirit prompt us to say something else—corrective or instructional—it will be surrounded by the atmosphere of heaven’s love.
(f) “Submitting”
“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” This is a very interesting instruction—one many of us dread. Thankfully, the apostle Paul goes on in this chapter to expand on what the Holy Spirit means by “one to another”: he specifies exactly to whom he expects us to submit. (For example: wives to their own husbands, workers to their own bosses, children to their own parents, etc. See: Ephesians 5:22–6:9.)
Is submission all that important to a life of worship? Absolutely, “Yes!” Submission is fundamental to worship. Think about Jesus, our role model for worship; his whole lifestyle consisted of one surrender to God after another:
Today I encourage you to follow the Holy Spirit’s instruction to: make constant melody to God, give thanks in everything, and to remain humble and submissive
