8/9/13- New Songs

1 Sing to the Lord a new song;
    sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
    proclaim his salvation day after day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

4 For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    he is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the nations are idols,
    but the Lord made the heavens. (Psalm 96:1-5) 

3 And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. (Revelation 14:3)

Thoughts:  Nine times in scripture does it tell us about God giving us a new song to sing- and that we ought to sing it.  In other words things change, and music changes.  We like the comfortable songs.  Frankly, as my brother said, "I want to sing the old songs my grandmother sang to me when she was rocking me in the rocking chair."  There needs to be a balance- we should not lose the best of the old, but also look for a new song with new tunes, new beat, and new ways of singing them.  We can get stuck in a rut.
    As a boy I can remember the Associate Reformed Presbyterian's worship service.  They had no organ and only sang the Psalms.  There was something special about that.  Yet, there was also something missing.  One of the best things the ARP did was change and allow musical instruments (which are allowed in the Bible- sing harp and lyre- see yesterday's devotional verse). "For two centuries after the Reformation, followers of John Calvin sang only scriptural songs mostly metrical version of the Psalms" (Encycopedia of the Reformed Faith) - the Psalters.  This was great- and we need to somehow go back every blue moon and celebrate it- I think we have totally lost much of this.  But we also need to move on.  The same with singing only the classical hymns of the 1850s.  We need to move on a bit, and not get stuck- sing God a new song!

Prayer: Help me, Lord, to keep my faith and the song you give me ever fresh, ever new, ever in love and faithful to you!