Born to Sing

Welcome to Daily Devotion with Ken Gurley. Devotions designed to inspire you on your daily walk with God. Here's your host, Ken Gurley. Happy Monday to each and every one of you. Thank you for being a part of Daily Devotion. Good to see you each and all. Miriam, Sally, Mike, Deborah, Barbara, every one of you. I pray the blessings of the Lord on you and I hope you're having a great, great day.

Um, we are in the midst of an anniversary season. We're calling it our sixth birthday. It was 6 years ago in 2019 of August. We started discussing 21 days of prayer. We are in the midst of 21 days of prayer now at our church and, uh, we always do this at the end of the summer to kind of focus us on the harvest season. But we went on live 21 went online 21 years ago. I don't even remember how we did it. I think just a personal Facebook, I was holding the camera up. I don't remember how I did it. And, uh, never thinking that it would get legs, it would be sustained. And, uh, in early 2020, we became much more consistent and just carried forward and here we've been. So, thank you for being a part of the daily devotion family all of these many years. Um, you guys are the greatest and thank you for encouraging one another and, uh, I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful for this opportunity to meet with each and every one of you.

I, I don't know why this morning, I, I knew the subject that I was going to speak about, but there was an old song on my heart. Um, Brother Doug Davis, Senior, Long Island, uh, I remember as a kid, uh, we were up there with Brother Kilgore and Brother Davis sang a song. "There's a song in my soul that the world cannot hear." And what a beautiful song. And that, that has been on my heart this morning. There ought to be an inward melody in our heart because you and I were born to sing. And I don't know what you're going through, but I want you to sing your way through it this week. Don't know what's happening in your family, but sing your way through it. If, if someone you know is discouraged, pass this along to them. Send them a link. Share it with them. Let's, let's get the song back. Not just singing the blues. Not going out to the garden and singing about eating worms. I'm talking about a toe-tapping, yes, a toe-tapping musical in your heart to be filled with melody unto God. You were born to sing.

It was years ago, a woman appeared before the state legislature here in Texas and she was arguing for an increase of funding for the creative arts. And in her passionate appeal, she made this statement, "Give me shoes and they last for a year. Give me groceries. They may last for a week, but give me a song and it will last for a lifetime." Oh, I believe that. I believe that's the power of song in our heart. Let me just add one more sentence to that. Give me the right song and it will last for eternity. Oh yes, it will. Because I read in heaven, uh, Revelation 5, I saw a lamb as if it had been slain standing in the center of the throne, encircled by those four living creatures, the elders, seven horns, seven eyes, seven spirits of God. He came and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. And here's what I like. Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song. I like that, Donna. Ron, I like that. Oh, people come into the house of God and one thing they're going to be struck with is we sing. We sing because we were born to sing. The Bible, one-third of the Bible has could be called a hymn book because it's really nothing but song. One book of the Bible, the longest, is dedicated to songs. The early church was comprised mostly of people who could not read or write, but they could sing and their doctrines were passed along. When you read the pastoral epistles, first and second Timothy and Titus, you read these faithful sayings. Some say that these were the early hymns of the New Testament church and that they would pass along their doctrine and pass along what mattered in the form of a song.

In a sense, all of us are songwriters and all of us are sages. We tell our sagas and we tell our stories, you know. Hey, Winnie. I, I was, I came up and I guess we're products of the, the music of our youth and teens. I came up when ballads were just a thing. Songs told stories. Yeah. Uh, it was the 3rd of June, another sleepy dusty delta day. And that, and you can just take that and run with it. It told stories. Or what about Don McLean's "American Pie"? And we all tried to figure out the story that was being told. These long stories in song form, form. It was, it was just the way it was sung. Well, your life is a song. Ralph Martin, worship in the early church. He wrote, "The Christian church was born in song." That we're a singing people. Singing accompanied the great acts of worship in scripture. When creation occurred, angels sang. Job 38. When the foundation of the temple was laid, Ezra 3, people sang. When the wall was built in Jerusalem in Nehemiah 12, the people sang. When the walls fell down in a jail cell at Caesarea, Paul and Silas had been singing. When the disciples left the upper room and route to the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, the Bible says they sang a song. In fact, Calvary itself, if you read the 22nd Psalm, you're pretty much reading the song of redemption. We sing. It's good to write about God. Better to talk about God, but best when we sing about him because some realities like God, Christ, salvation, heaven, hell are almost too great for speech. They must be sung.

Every culture sings. Every kindred, tribe, nation sings. Every generation is sung. Everything in nature sings. All sing. Poets speak of the silence of the oceans and the stillness of outer space. But we know that all of creation hums with the hymns of life. Quantum physicists say that if light slowed down, it would become a sound. And if sound sped up, it would become light. That everything vibrates and resonates with music. String theory, that's an interesting theory in physics. Superstring physicists will tell us that human beings are nothing but vibrating loops of energy. That a person's life is a dancing bundle of potentiality. Our hearts are a heart song. Our days are a life song. Every created thing has its own sound, its own rhythm. Thin whales can hear the sounds of its companions from up to 13,000 miles away in the ocean. Humpback whales are able to sing in rhyme. Their songs are always changing and they pass their new songs along from whale to whale so that in any one season all the whales of a single ocean will be singing the same song. That shouldn't be so odd. Earth vibrates with the music of its creator. In certain Jewish synagogues, Genesis 1, it's not a story. It's not text. It's a song. And they chant in their synagogues. "Then God sang, 'Let there be light.' And there was light." Then God sang. And again and again throughout creation, it becomes a song. God sings things into existence. Stars sing. The Perseus galaxy cluster sounds a strong bass note. Even a black hole sings a long constant B flat, 57 octaves below middle C. God sang, "Let there be," and there was. And the song of creation that has been sounding since its inception, it's still happening. The same God that moved on the face of the deep and all of nature responded, it's happening now. The trees are clapping their branches. The brooks are bubbling. The wind is whistling through the branches. Creation sings. And so do people. From ancient times, it's been impossible to separate a human being from rhythm and rhyme and lyric and song. In the Bible, you read of Jubal very early on, the father of those who played the musical instruments. We're no strangers to it. Wow.

Let the song be heard because life is a song and each of you is a song. And when God created you, God created you to be an unrepeatable, irreplaceable song the likes of which have never been heard or will ever be heard again. John Keats said it, "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter." Unheard. Uh-oh. I'm about to date myself here. I, oh, I was, I was going to say "unheard melody," but you guessed it. The phrase "Unchained Melody" went through my heart. "Unchain my heart." Paul called it making melody in your heart to the Lord. It's an inward symphony. It's the music to which you move and march. It's the meaning and the purpose and the rhyme and the passion of your life. It's why you sing. You were made to sing. Our song is new. We got a new song. Every day we sing a new song. Do you know how it bores me, Mona? I, Patty. Do you know how it bores me? It used to bore the fire out of me growing up in church and we would have these special songs and you'd have the same person get up and sing the same song that they had sang for the same generation. God wants a new song. He wants a new song of praise. Psalm 33:3, "Sing a new song unto the Lord." Psalm 149, "Praise ye the Lord. Sing the Lord a new song and his praise in the congregation of the saints." And I could throw another dozen or two scriptures at you like that. Sing a new song. Do you remember what the psalmist said? "I will open the dark sayings upon my harp." In other words, when we sing, it's more than worship. It's prophetic understanding. I will open the dark sayings. I will find the deep meanings. I will find the rhyme and reason of this universe and why God is moving in the way that he is. When you sing, you prophesy. "Sing unto the Lord a new song. He's done marvelous things. His right hand, his holy arm hath gotten him the victory." In other words, when you sing a new song, you are unleashing the power of God to work in a great way.

Now, modern thought says this isn't true. William James, father of modern pragmatic philosophy, said, "We are happy because we sing." It's the same message we heard years ago. The lame man who was healed, he, he leapt for joy. It was popular years ago to say that the lame man leaped not because of joy, but to get joy. That if you want joy, you got to leap for joy. Do you remember that? If you want joy, you must jump for joy. In other words, you don't have joy, but you're going to get it when you jump. I, I don't know about that. We don't leap to get joy. We leap because of joy. We don't sing to get happy. We sing. I sing because I'm happy. Yeah. I read of a group of women who were in a public place and they just gathered around the piano and started singing some of the old songs of Zion. Their happiness was obvious. You know, one of the greatest, and Dave, one of the greatest, um, small groups, and I always like it when it happens. We're a small group church. We do small groups all the time in the fall and the spring. One of the greatest small groups in our church is when those who are musically talented will, uh, have a small group that's built on nothing but singing the old songs. Um, I, I love each generation having its own songs. I love that. I just love it. They don't have to sing my music. I don't, I don't require that. Um, it was my music. I want them to have their music and their songs. But I always love when these small groups form. They sing out of the songbooks. They sing some of the old songs. And no, no, they don't. They don't really go over, uh, in a lot of modern generations. They don't really understand songs like "Hold the Fort" and they don't really understand songs like "The Royal Telephone" or "Holy Fax Machine." I just made that last one up. But they sing their songs and I love it. I love for them to sing their songs. But some of the small groups that get together and they just sing the old songs and, and they're blessed and they should bless us because it was the songs of our youth. Well, this group of women had gathered around a piano in a public place and they were singing some of those old songs. Their happiness was obvious. And a Japanese psychologist stopped and said, "In all of my years of practice and working with people, I've never been able to get someone so happy as what they are right now. What I see with you ladies singing around this piano." No, you'll never do that. Because there's a song in my soul that the world cannot hear. Our outward happiness is tied to an inward joy. The joy of the Lord is in our heart. I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free.

Do you remember what the Israelites in Babylonian captivity said when instructed to sing? They said, "How shall we sing the songs of Zion in a strange land?" No freedom, no song. When the chain binds your life, there's no song. When those old habits control you, there's no song. You may have heard they're talking about reopening the prison Alcatraz and off that island in San Francisco. If you've ever toured that old prison, you'll hear them tell you that the hardest thing for the prisoners in Alcatraz was not the bars, not the remoteness, not the isolation, not the dampness, not the cold. The hardest thing for prisoners was when the sounds of music drifted from the mainland and they could hear people singing because there was no song inside of their chains. But when freedom comes, the song comes. That's when the song of Moses was written. When freedom came. It was a song of deliverance. "He brought me out of the miry clay. Once like a bird in prison, I dwelt. I've been delivered. He that the Son has set free." I sing because I'm happy. I sing because I'm free. "His eye is on the sparrow. And I know he watches me." He's watching over me. The one who neither, neither sleeps nor slumbers. The one who is everywhere at all times protecting us. Job said it. "He knows the way that I take." David said, "Though a host should encamp against me, my heart's not going to fear. You're my strength. You're my salvation. Whom shall I fear?" Why do we sing? We sing like small birds in a nest because we know we reside under the shadow of the Almighty God. This song is not just sung and confined to here, to terra firma, to life under the sun. It's going to be sung for all eternity. And whose song's going to go on and on and on and be sung for generations? You see, we believe earth is just a dim reflection of heaven. That our worship here, and that's a series that we're doing right now. Oh, wow. Oh, until heaven comes to Houston. We are praying that heaven comes down. This earth is just a dim reflection. Our worship here is seen in its purest, best form over yonder. Few have seen to the other side. One who did was named John. John the revelator went to heaven and he saw so much. Revelation 4, he's called into heaven's throne room. Here's a voice saying, "Come up here." And he saw things that just dazzled him. Jasper, sardius, diamond, emerald, gold. A sea of crystal mingled with fire, thunders, lightnings from the throne. Angelic creatures worshiping a pristine, pure, and glistening water in a river flowing from the throne. It's a pearly white city. But wait, something is wrong. Something is imperfect. Something that shouldn't be there. It's a lamb. It's a lamb with the marks of slaughter on him. So powerful. The first thing you see in heaven that isn't beautiful is a lamb as though it had been slain. Who is that lamb? "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." And our new song is not the song of Moses. It's the song of the slain lamb who was found worthy to unfold the future of the cosmos. And because of the sla, the slain lamb, we read the song goes on. Revelation 5, "And they sang a new song. You're worthy. You're worthy because you were slain. And you purchased through your blood all of us for God, and from every tribe and language and people and nation, you have made us a kingdom of priests to serve our God." Well, it doesn't stop there, though. In Revelation 5:11, I look and I heard the voice of angels numbering thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10,000, a myriad of angels encircling the throne and the living creatures and the elders. And all of them shouted with a loud voice, "Worthy! Worthy is the lamb." They shouted in song. They didn't sing silently. Worthy, worthy, worthy. Every creature wrapped up in a new song. Can I just say, Patty, Sherry, on earth as it is in heaven. In heaven there is song. And there ought to be a song in our soul today. We sing. We sing because we're happy. We sing because we're free. We sing because we've been born again from the blood of the lamb. We are born to sing. I don't know why I just felt this this morning. I just, that song's been on my heart. "There's a song in my soul that the world cannot hear. There is music that no mortal can play. He has vanquished my fears. He has dried all my tears. And he's taken my heartache away." I pray that's the song in your soul today. Sing, sing loud. Sing strong. Let the Lord, let the Lord be glorified in your day. I pray that you are the church. You went to church yesterday, but today, Monday, you are the church everywhere you go. Everywhere you go, let the presence of the Lord accompany you. God bless you.

On our sixth birthday, thank you for being a part of this. Many of you for six years. Um, this is, this is the ministry, um, uh, sponsored by Second Chance Network. You can find out more about that at kengurly.com. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Like, follow Facebook, subscribe, YouTube, and X. You guys are the greatest. Share this with as many human beings as possible. And may the Lord bless you. Look forward to seeing you again tomorrow. God bless.

Thank you for sharing in Daily Devotion with Ken Gurley. We pray this ministry has been a source of encouragement and strength to you. Please be mindful that your financial support enables us to meet with you each day. To give a donation or connect with us, visit our website at kgurley.com. There you will also find the latest books, podcasts, and resources. "Blessed 90 Days to Change Your World" is Pastor Gurley's latest book. You can get your life-changing book at kengurley.com. May God's favor rest on you in every way until we meet. Man.