Listening to Biblically Rich Music Is an Investment
I want to encourage you to spend time learning biblically rich music because it is a worthy investment that will yield spiritual blessing for you in time.
Listening to biblically rich music is an investment and I choose that word intentionally.
Choosing to listen to music filled with biblical truth will mean denying yourself of other things. You might be setting aside other genres of music you enjoy in order to listen to this one. It will fill mental space that you previously filled with silence, a podcast, or conversation.
So why would you make this choice to listen to biblically rich music? When you make an investment, it means that whatever you gave up at the outset, you trust that your choice to forfeit it at present will yield greater reward than what you lost. Listening to biblically rich music now will certainly encourage your heart and do you lots of good, but I believe this discipline will yield greater joy for you in time to come.
In this article, I want to motivate you to start listening to, memorizing, and loving biblically rich music so that you store away truth in your heart for the Holy Spirit to bring to mind and use to bless you at later times.
The Holy Spirit Is at Work in Your Memory
God has both promised and given a special gift to those who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. God has given us his Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:12). The Holy Spirit dwells in every true believer—those who have put their trust in Jesus. He does many wonderful things for us, which we cannot do for ourselves. He does his greatest work from within—pouring love for God into our hearts (Romans 5:5), invigorating our bodies for service and obedience to God (Romans 8:11), and enlightening our minds (1 Corinthians 2:9-14).
In John 14, Jesus describes one way the Holy Spirit will serve us, among many other ways, like this:
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26 ESV)
The Holy Spirit will teach us all we need to know. One way that he will teach us is by bringing to our memory what Jesus has said. In other words, the Holy Spirit works in and through the memory of those who know and love Jesus, to help them know, love, and trust Jesus more.
The Holy Spirit lives within you to help you remember Jesus and his Word. What a wonderful gift!
You Must Work at Your Memory
Although the Holy Spirit helps us remember truth, we also have a responsibility to be good stewards of our memory. I want to remind you of something very obvious: You cannot remember what you have not known or experienced. You can’t remember a poem you’ve never heard. You can’t remember a place you’ve never been. And in the words of a beloved mentor, “You can’t remember a Scripture you’ve never read” (Mark Talbot).
The Holy Spirit is God, and so he can transcend our limitations and speak his truth to us from Scriptures we have never read. He does this often in places where they have no access to the written Word of God.
But most often, he works in ordinary ways—in ways that require our participation. Philippians 2:12-13 tells us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (ESV). Do you recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in that verse? God works in you. The Holy Spirit takes great pleasure in growing you to be more like Jesus and helping you know God. But he doesn’t do it alone. He wants you to participate in his work. In fact, he wants you to be thoroughly invested in your own growth, such that Scripture tells us to “work out” our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12 ESV). We are to be emotionally invested in and consciously pursuing our own growth.
Our inner selves are storehouses. We shelve experience after experience, word after word, thought after thought, feeling after feeling in the warehouse of our minds. Sometimes we are passive agents in our memory making—something unexpected happens. Or, we subconsciously learn by experience things like which foods we enjoy. But sometimes, we intentionally store things in our memory, like when we choose what movie to watch, or what book to read. We decide what sorts of things we store in our memories. And so, we must take responsibility for our memory.
Steward Your Memory by Storing Up God’s Word
The Holy Spirit is like our great librarian. He is so much more than that, but he is the one who ministers to us by pulling Scripture from the storehouse of our minds and bringing the Word of God to our memory just when we need it (John 14:26).
However, the Holy Spirit does not often retrieve what we don’t have stored in our minds. But think of this! The more Scripture you store up in your heart, the more Scripture you have for the Holy Spirit to bring to memory.
Store Away Scripture in Your Heart Through Song
One delightful way to store Scripture in your heart is through biblically rich music! In fact, Scripture itself encourages turning Scripture into song in order to help it stick in our memory.
Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (ESV).
God has gifted many of his children with musical talent (shout-out to Shane & Shane). He has inspired poets to write reflections and meditate on Scripture in beautiful, creative ways (thank you, Andrew Peterson). He has given us music as a means of expressing our hearts to him and as a method of memorization. You can draw near to God and experience him draw near to you through these songs!
So I encourage you to find biblically rich music. Make it your music of choice. Play it often in your home or in your car. The Holy Spirit will bring it to your mind at later times. Your background music by day may become your “song in the night” when trouble comes (Job 35:10).
The Reward of Listening to Biblically Rich Music
I write this encouragement to you, because the Holy Spirit ministered to me through song this morning, and I want him to do the same for you. Here’s my short story.
I lacked a desire for God’s Word and knew I needed to seek him, but I was burdened with guilt and hesitant to draw near to him. Indeed, I felt sinfully fearful he would respond to my failure to love him most with condemnation (Romans 8:1). I went to bed praying he would help me seek him.
I woke up and the first thing on my mind was a song I heard often in the car,
Come boldly to the throne of grace,
ye wretched sinner, come,
and lay your load at Jesus’ feet,
and plead what he has done.“How can I come?” Some soul may say.
“I’m lame and cannot walk,
my guilt and sin have stopped my mouth,
I sigh but cannot talk.”He makes the dead to hear his voice.
He makes the blind to see.
The sinner lost he came to save,
and sets the prisoner free.[1]
And with that memory from the Holy Spirit, I had the courage to approach the Lord afresh that morning. I found him to be, as always, merciful and compassionate. I had the sweetest fellowship with him as a result of the Holy Spirit’s word of truth that came to me through that song.
The simple tunes you store away can become, with time, triumphant anthems that drive out lies, fears, and unbelief. Fill up your heart by learning music that is full of God’s Word, and God’s Spirit will take great pleasure in helping you remember it, just when you need it.
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Source
[1] “Freedom of Access to a Throne of Grace,” lyrics by Daniel Herbert in 1838, music by Clint Wells and Brian T. Murphy in 2004.