Take a moment to read the quote by A.W.Tozer in the picture. This may seem like a strange statement until we really unpack it. We truly want the first part to be true. We don’t want to be telling lies. But what does he mean by stating that in church we sing lies. Well, what Tozer was really getting at is the fact that we often sing songs that do not coincide with our actual spiritual state.
For example, we often sing the praise song “I Will Follow”:
“Where You go, I’ll go, Where You stay, I’ll stay
When You move, I’ll move, I will follow… “
But then, we don’t follow his leading and we live like the world on Monday through Saturday.
Or we sing the hymn, “I Surrender All:
All to Jesus I surrender, All to him I freely give
I will ever love and trust him, In his presence daily live.
And then we don’t give him all of our lives. We hold things back when he wants to be the ruler of all we are and all we have. We don’t always live for him.
I could go on exposing more lyrics we regularly sing that we often do not live out or are contrary to the state of our hearts. This hypocrisy is no small matter in the eyes of the Lord. He desires truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6). There should be integrity and sincerity in all that we do and say, especially when it comes to worshipping the King of Kings. But sadly, we are guilty of lying to God in the church services and meetings while singing hymns and contemporary worship songs. Although some may be intending to deceive God and themselves, most of us don’t want to lie. We don’t want to pretend that we want to live for God when we don’t. Deep down we really believe what we are singing. We do want those words we sing to be true. But our actions don’t follow through.
So, do we stop singing these songs or verses of songs? I would give an emphatic, “NO!” But here are some thoughts.
First, as we are singing the hymns and praise songs, let us pay very close attention to the words. This is especially true for songs we know so well that we don’t even think about what we are singing. Let’s pay attention to what we are really saying, pledging, promising, proclaiming to believe in these songs.
Secondly, we need to examine our lives against the words that we have just sung. Are we really living out those words? Do we really desire what we sang about? Do we believe what we sang about?
Thirdly, because the answer is that we should be living out, desiring and believing the words of the song, let us pray that the Spirit will move in our lives and convict us that we need to make the changes necessary so that when we sing that praise song or hymn again, we are not lying, but are speaking the truth from our heart.
In Christ Alone
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