They shall sing of the ways of the Lord.
Psalms 138:5
The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture that gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the cross, he gave three great leaps and went on his way singing,
Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!
Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you and said, "I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; none of them shall be remembered against you."
Oh, what a sweet season it is when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyful that I could barely refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy that I wanted to tell every snowflake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of His constant loving-kindness leads them to say, "I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth."1 See to it, Christian, that you magnify the Lord this day.
Long as we tread this desert land,
New mercies shall new songs demand.
1) Psalm 34:1
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From Morning & Evening revised and edited by Alistair Begg copyright © 2003. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.