John Wesley wrote his directions for singing as part of ‘Select Hymns’ (published in 1761). The full list can be found here (worshipedia.org) or here (Joyful Noise Ministries), or in the original text if you happen to have a 350year book lying around!

I wanted to highlight three of them which I think deserve particular attention for all worshippers in all situations:

• Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a single degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.
• Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength.
• Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

If we all adhered to these directions then I believe we’ll find our worship moving on to another level.

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I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Psalm 27:13 [NIV]

This is one of my favourite scriptures, and I think that it describes the act of worship really well.

The worship leader Graham Kendrick says that ”the core dynamic of Christian worship is revelation followed by response” (from Worship Central article found  here). I read the passage from Psalm 27 as someone who is in a situation that, in the natural, doesn’t seem good (whether it be enemies attacking, sickness, poverty, relationship troubles etc), but they have met Jesus in worship and the only response they can have is “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living“.

So as you are worshipping let the Lord show you who He is and how much He loves you, and you’ll find that He is far bigger and stronger than anything that can come against you (Romans 8:31). Our worshipful response to revelation about Jesus, is awe, love, and confidence.

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Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart. [Psalm 24:3-4 NIV]

For the past couple of weeks since David spoke on this topic I’ve been thinking about the ‘power of a good conscience’. Have a look at David’s blog post on the subject to read up on what He said.

Our conscience has a direct bearing on our worship, but it doesn’t define who can ascend the mountain of the Lord (Psalm 24:3).

Our relationship with the Father, and therefore our worship, is not based upon anything that we have or haven’t done. Everything is based upon Jesus – the perfect one-time sacrifice for all our sins forever  (Hebrews 10:14), so that when the Father looks at us He sees us as righteous as Jesus, he sees us with clean hands and pure hearts! Hallelujah. So the one who may ascend the mountain of the Lord is anyone who is redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

So if our conscience doesn’t change how God sees us then how does it affect our worship? Well, worship involves both us and God, and although an unclean conscience doesn’t affect God’s view, it has a strong bearing on our behaviour. When Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord it was them that hid from God, rather than God withdrawing from them (Genesis 3:8) – their consciences condemned them. The result of an unclean conscience is that we don’t feel that we can fellowship with and worship God – we lose our understanding of Jesus’s sacrifice in our place.

This is summed up in 1 John 3:21 where it says: Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God. So from a worship perspective it’s vital to keep a good conscience so that we realise that we can have confidence to enter the Holy place by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19-22). So the call for us is to be holy, for He is holy (1 Peter 1:16).

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This is a great uplifting song of praise! Thanks to Peter White for the recommendation.

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