Singing God’s praise is a natural outflow of knowing the bountiful grace of God. “I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm 13:6). Singing praise is a natural response of the glad heart that is found in salvation. “Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise” (James 5:13). Singing praise is the outworking of a heart that is saturated in the glorious gospel found in God’s holy Word, and direct result of being filled with the Spirit.

All Christians want to be more like Christ. And good news! All Christians will be more like Christ (Rom 8:29). God is committed to taking every person who is in Christ and slowly, but certainly, conforming them into His image. When we think of God conforming us to the image of Christ, we think of being transformed in our affections to love the things that Jesus loves and to hate the things that Jesus hates. We think of God changing our desires for sin and our lives beginning to look more like the perfect Son of God. But did you know that becoming more like Christ means that you become a singer? Here’s what I mean.

In the ESV, the words “sing” and “praise” occur next to each other about 116 times. God loves the musical worship of His people. And Jesus knew this. And Jesus sang! We see Him with His disciples walking to the Mount of Olives after the Lord’s Supper, and what is He doing? He is singing (Matt 26:30). Quoting God the Son from Psalm 22, the writer of Hebrews says, “He is not ashamed to call them brothers saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise” (Heb 2:11-12). This is a mark of Christ. He sings praises. And I’m convinced that this is a mark of those who are becoming like Christ.

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