According to the passage above, through worship we live a life of wisdom (v. 15), we redeem the time (v. 16), we do God's will (v. 17). If that weren't enough, I said in my sermon that apparently worship puts us in a place where we are candidates to be filled with the Spirit in a fresh, ongoing way. I say "candidates" because while Jesus said in John 3 the moving of the Spirit is unpredictable and uncontrollable, Ephesians 5:18–20 implies that we have some part to play in the continual infilling of the Spirit, and that part apparently is worship. My experience bears witness to that idea; when I worship, I sense God's presence.

A couple of other details in this text caught my attention. Worship is directed not only to God but each other (v. 19, "speak to one another" "to the Lord"); thus we're building each other up with our worship. And we're to sing both out loud and in our hearts. The sense I get from these verses is that God enjoys music even more than we do. God created this mysterious experience called music, and for some reason he enjoys hearing us sing. As a result of my time with this text, I've been singing to God more this week than I did last week. I'm making plans to memorize more songs from the hymnal that I can sing out loud to my creator when I commute. And little snippets of praise are quietly filling my heart here and there throughout the day.

Oh, worship the King, all glorious above, Oh, gratefully sing his power and his love.