Make Melody in Your Heart

Notice how Paul asked that question. What? Don’t you know that your body is the temple, the sanctuary, the dwelling place, of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that you have been given by the LORD, and that you do not belong to yourself? Don’t you know that? Evidently, some were not aware of it.

For you have been purchased with a price, by the precious blood of Jesus. Therefore give glory to God in your body, and IN YOUR SPIRIT, that is, in your heart, for both your body and your spirit belong to HIM.

Those are some powerful verses. He is talking about the individual’s physical body and their spirit.

A melody in your heart

You know, no matter how much we think we know, the LORD can always show us some simple little thing that will absolutely change our thinking. And one of those things is that being filled with the Spirit has to do with singing and making melody in your hearts to the LORD. Wow! Who knew?

But that shouldn’t surprise us, because it actually says that very clearly in the Bible.

The Bible says it very clearly. Yet sometimes the things the Bible tells us very plainly just don’t register. And when they do finally dawn on us, it seems like we've received some great revelation of truth. Yet it was in the Bible right in plain view the whole time.

Be filled with the Spirit

That’s how to be filled with the Spirit of God, by singing and making melody in your heart to the LORD. But, brother, what about prayer and fasting, what about meditating in the word of God, what about waiting on the LORD, what about praying in tongues for hours at a time?

Well, all of those things are good things, and we ought to do them. But those things are not specifically mentioned in the Bible as the way to be filled with the Spirit. Singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, that’s the way the Bible says to be filled with the Spirit. That’s how we get filled with the Spirit of God.

Why sing in your heart?

So, naturally, as a worship leader, I would tend to utilize this truth to get myself in the Spirit, every day, and especially when I’m getting ready to lead worship. Worship leaders ought to be in the Spirit, right?

But you might say, well, I’m not a worship leader, why does this pertain to me? Why should I sing and make melody in my heart to the LORD? Because you’re a believer, and whatever God has called us to do individually in His kingdom, we all need to be filled with the Spirit. In the Bible, it says that people like Stephen and Phillip were full of faith and full of the Holy Ghost, and it says they did mighty works among the people.

Well, brother, I have the Holy Spirit in me, and I’ve been filled with the Spirit, and I can even speak with tongues. Congratulations, you’ve made some progress in the LORD. But brace yourself, HAVING the Spirit is not the same as BEING FILLED with the Spirit. Did you know that?

Filled with the Spirit

As believers in Christ, we always have the Spirit, but we’re not always filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is a place we come to after doing something. Here’s an example. We all come to church on Sunday morning with the Spirit in us, but after we sing to the LORD for a while, we get caught up in worship. Why? Because, while singing, we become FILLED with the Spirit. Something changes.

Suddenly we love and adore the LORD. The sweetness of His presence just seems to overshadow everything else. Some will even weep during that time. Some will hear things from the LORD. And I’m pretty sure that most everyone recognizes the difference. We always have the Spirit, but we’re not always filled with the Spirit.

The Bible says that when the leaders of the church at Antioch MINISTERED to the LORD, the Holy Ghost spoke. He did not speak until they worshiped the LORD. When we minister to the LORD, something changes.

Built of living stones

Now, we looked at the scripture verse that says our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, His dwelling place. Now there’s another verse very similar that seems to say that we, as the church, we, plural, are the temple of the Holy Ghost.

This seems to be referring to the overall body of Christ, plural, as being the temple of the Holy Ghost, as opposed to the individual believer. And the Bible agrees with this understanding of the temple being a corporate temple.

The temple of God is a corporate temple for the LORD to dwell in, but as an individual believer, we are lively stones, as Peter says in one verse, dwelling places for the Holy Spirit. So, both views are correct.

Singing in the Temple

Now, the basis of this message came about one Saturday as I was preparing to lead worship the next day on Sunday. I had put together a song list, and I was spending some time getting myself IN THE SPIRIT.

Again, we all tend to drift away from our awareness of His presence, which is a natural and a normal thing. We get busy doing things and our hearts just drift. We get focused on natural things.

So, I was busy singing songs, endeavoring to get myself in the Spirit. But on this particular day, for some reason, I was having some difficulty. I wasn’t quite making the connection with the LORD that I wanted. I can tell when I’m in the Spirit and when I’m not. And, for some reason, I just wasn’t getting there.

And so, I put all that aside for a while, so I could run over to the grocery store and pick up a few things, which is part of our Saturday routine.

Now, on the way over there I prayed a simple prayer. I said, LORD, would You please help me to make the connection in the Spirit? I’m having some difficulty getting there. Please forgive me, LORD, for possibly getting too busy and maybe neglecting to spend enough time with You as I should. Help me, LORD. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I will sing unto the LORD

And so, I went into the grocery store and began to shop. Now, before I got there, I had been singing a certain worship song, an older song that I enjoy singing.

So, as I went into the store, I just kept on singing that song under my breath, just while I was putting things in the shopping cart. Just quietly, sort of under my breath. And I just kept that song going while I shopped. It wasn’t a distraction to me. I was just creating my own background music, so to speak, down in my heart.

Giving attention to Jesus

What are we doing when we do this? We are loving Jesus. We are setting our attention and our affection upon Him. We are singing praises to Him, we are loving Him and worshiping Him.

You know, the Bible tells us that God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. One of those things is the foolishness of preaching to save the lost. There’s another thing that appears foolish to the world, and that’s worship. It appears to them that we sing songs to the LORD and get emotional. The world calls that emotionalism, or foolishness.

Worship and the presence of the LORD

But it happens to be the way the LORD has chosen to make a connection with His people. Through worship we encounter His presence, whether worshiping as a group or as an individual. We are looking in the LORD’s direction. Is there any wonder that we make a connection with HIm when we do that?

And I had the thought, you cannot sing songs of worship to the LORD without setting your attention on HIm.

And so, by the time I got back to the car with my groceries, I was in the Spirit. I mean, we know when we’ve made the connection. The song we’re singing just takes on a different sort of beauty. It becomes rich and sweet and beautiful. It becomes “anointed.”

God’s dwelling place

Anyway, that day I thought again about the scripture that says we’re filled with the Spirit by singing in our heart to the LORD. And then I thought, you know, we sing about and talk about God filling this place with His presence, filling this sanctuary, this physical meeting place, with His glory.

And the Lord does do that. We’ve all probably been in meetings where you could feel His presence when you walked into the meeting. It was tangible, like a weightiness in the air.

And it’s wonderful. But the thought occurred to me that the sanctuary is not out here in this room. Oh yes, we’re sitting or standing in a room. But that’s not His dwelling place. The real sanctuary is right down here in our heart. We carry the sanctuary with us, everywhere we go.

This is the true sanctuary, our heart, our spirit. It's here that we worship God. The Bible says that we worship Him in spirit and in truth. That’s where He dwells. It’s the place where we come to know Him, deep down here in our inward man.

And sometimes people talk about how holy the sanctuary is, the church building, the physical room. And there is a holiness in this physical room.

But the truth is that we, each of us, are the temple of the Holy Ghost. When we come to church, we bring the sanctuary with us. The physical room has a certain holiness about it, because of God’s presence there. But every believer is far more holy than the physical building we meet in.

Changed in His presence

And on that Saturday, the scripture verse came to me about our body being the temple of the Holy Ghost. That’s the temple that He fills with His glory. And when we fill this inward temple with songs of worship and thanksgiving and adoration, we make the connection with Him, here in this temple of our heart. And our heart is changed by that.

And then the outward temple of this building we’re in begins to be filled with His presence, His glory, His beauty, His weightiness. But it all starts right down in the temple of our heart. That revelation became very real to me at the moment.

The love of God

And so, the next day came, Sunday morning, and it was time to go to church, and to lead worship. Now,And when we got into the worship time, there was just a sweetness in the songs, the Lord’s presence was there, and we had a wonderful time of worship. I looked around at one point, and every person in the room, including the children, seemed to be caught up in worship. It was beautiful!

You know, the Bible says that the love of God has been poured out in our heart by the Holy Ghost. But did you ever think about it? When does that happen? It happens when we make that connection with Him in worship. That’s when His love is poured out in our heart by the Holy Ghost.

How do we know that to be true? Because we know that when we worship Him and make that connection, then we suddenly have a love for Him that didn’t seem to be there before. Where did that love come from? It came from the Holy Spirit. He poured it out in our heart.

We begin to adore the LORD, to love Him, to worship Him from our heart, to marvel at His beauty, and sometimes even weep. Why the change? Because the Holy Spirit has poured out God’s love in our heart when we worship. We have a love in us that didn’t seem to be there before.

God’s love within us

And one of the things the LORD showed me in all of this was that the Lord pours out His love in our heart so that His love in us can be used to love one another with.

I mean, think about it. How can anyone as naturally unloving and unkind as human beings actually love other people? Well, we need to have some supernatural help. We have to have a special kind of love poured out in us by the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

Why am I saying all of this? I’m trying to point out how extremely important it is for us to maintain our connection with the LORD that comes to us by singing and making melody in your heart to Him.

There are songs that say for us to worship the LORD in the holy of holies. But where is the holy of holies? It’s right here in our heart. We have the outer court, our body, and the holy place, our soul and our mind, but the holy of holies is our heart, our spirit. That’s where the LORD dwells. That's where we need to worship Him. That’s the temple we need to fill with songs of worship, that’s the sanctuary, this temple of our heart.

And as we do that, we’ll be filled with His Spirit, and His Spirit will pour out the love of God in our hearts.