Playlist: Worship Songs — Thursday
Psalm 84:5
What joy for those whose strength comes from the LORD, who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. (NLT)
We are blessed to have an incredible worship team here at Southland. It’s fun to get to work with these talented musicians and see their hearts for helping our church community connect with God through worship music.
I asked Jess McKenney, our Music Director, what her prayer is for worship music at our church: “Our prayer is that the songs we write and the songs we choose to put into worship sets will lead people into the presence of the Lord—that they will experience Him in a new way, sometimes for the first time. Worship songs are our way of ascribing praise to Jesus through music.”
She also added, “The Lord is so faithful and steadfast—an hour a week seems like such a small amount of time to spend in worship to Him, so we start the week off with that and then, hopefully, that sets the tone for us the rest of the week to live our lives in worship to Jesus.”
Every single week, they think through which worship songs will be best to help prepare us to hear from God as His Word is taught. The work they do helps us worship, but it’s still up to each of us individually to prepare ourselves. Psalm 84 is designed to help us do that.
This was a psalm that Israelites would have sang to prepare their hearts for making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem—a trip they took at least once, if not a few times, during the year. There were different festivals, celebrations, and reasons to come to the capital city, but the biggest was the opportunity to worship in the temple. Psalm 84 focuses on the delight of going there.
The purpose of singing this psalm was not just to acknowledge that delight, but to cultivate a desire for it—to set their minds and open their hearts to the staggering privilege of being a welcomed guest in God’s own house!
We need to do the same. This weekend as you come to our church services, remind yourself of that reality. It might not feel like walking a dirt road to Jerusalem, but we can prepare our hearts in the same way. It is a privilege to worship and sing with our fellow believers. Let us come with expectation, full of gratitude, and with eyes focused on the One who is worthy of it all.
Thursday’s Reflection
As you prepare, check out some of the awesome songs our Southland Music team has written for our community: southland.church/music
