Sing a New Song (Isaiah 42)
There is a prophetic invitation for us to sing a new song to the Lord. That is something we try to pursue in the house of prayer by singing a passage from the bible antiphonally - spontaneously responding together to what God is revealing about Himself. This month we're considering this passage from Isaiah 42:
“Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants. Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits; let the habitants of Sela sing for joy, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord, and declare his praise in the coastlands. The Lord goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war he stirs up his zeal; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes.”
— Isaiah 42:10-13
There is something that awakens in our hearts when we sing to the Lord. As we worship and praise him our minds and our hearts get renewed and we can respond in singing a new song to him who is worthy. Often we only sing about the same characteristics of the Lord, those that we are most familiar with. But there is so much more! There is a prophetic invitation for us to sing a new song - to consider those aspects we are less familiar with, like the promise of His coming, and to respond with an honest and raw response from the heart. As we encounter Him with fresh eyes, it is only right that our response is to lift up songs to him.
We are invited into joining a song that is being sung from all the nations across the earth. This is such a powerful imagery. As the church, the bride we are invited to raise up a song to our beloved, our bridegroom, that joins in with the songs of the saints from across the nations. We see this powerful scene in Revelation 7:9-10 "a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb... crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” This is a taste of what is to come and how the nations will declare his glory - It’s amazing to think that we can even now join in with this invitation right where we are!
Consider a facet of the Lord that you are less familiar with, meditate upon it and then try singing to Jesus about it as part of your worship today.
The bible often speaks of the "new song" and we’re taking this season to meditate on a few key passages. By singing His word, we can grow together in our understanding of who God is, why worship and prayer are important to Him, and how He will use houses of prayer and praying churches across the earth to see the fullness of His plans come to fruition.