October 10, 2019 – Luke 1:46–47

And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
—Luke 1:46–47

He loves to hear us sing when we sing his praises from our hearts.8 Don’t you delight to hear your own children sing, and is there anything sweeter than a song from a child? And God loves to hear his children sing. Even your discords, so long as they do not affect your heart but are only of sound and not of soul, will please him. What a beautiful simile is used in Psalm 22: “O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel” (KJV)! Just as God’s ancient people, during the feast of tabernacles, dwelt under booths made from the boughs of trees, so Jehovah is represented as having made for himself a tabernacle out of the praises of his people. They are only like fading boughs that soon turn brown, yet the great Lord of all condescends to sit beneath them, and as we each bring a new bough plucked from the tree of mercy, we help to make a new tabernacle for the Most High to dwell in.
Mary praised God with personal devotion. Notice how intensely personal her song is. We should join with other Christians in their songs of praise, but always mind that your personal note is not omitted, “My soul glorifies the Lord.” Don’t you think that some of you too often forget this? You come to hear sermons, and sometimes you do not come to the assembly as much as you ought for the purpose of directly and distinctly praising God in your own personality and individuality. The music is delightful to us as it rises from thousands of voices, but to God it can be pleasant only as it comes from each heart. “My soul”—for I have a personal indebtedness to you, my God, and there is a personal union between you and me; I love you, and you love me; therefore, even if all other souls are dumb, my soul glorifies the Lord. In this fashion, have a song to yourself, and mind that it is thoroughly your own.
In Mary’s song we see great spirituality. She is far from being content with mere lip service. Her language is poetic, but she is not satisfied with her language. But she speaks of “my soul” and “my spirit.” Let us never be satisfied with any kind of worship that does not take up the whole of the inner and higher nature. It is what you are within that you really are before the living God. It is quite a secondary matter how loud the chant may be or how sweet the tone of your hymn or how delightfully you join in it, unless your spirit, your soul, truly praises the Lord.
—C. H. Spurgeon