I am not a good baker. I once made a vanilla sponge cake that oozed melted butter as you picked up each wobbly slice. It was really bad. Since this kitchen disaster, I have discovered that baking is more about science than spontaneous creative flare. A set of well calibrated measuring scales is essential.  

A good set of scales takes out the guess work. You don’t have to approximate how much flour you’re adding. You can avoid making my mistake, and instead, add the correct amount of butter to your mixture. The cake turns out the way it was meant to be. 

Overtime, however, even the best set of scales can drift into inaccuracy. You need to press the ‘recalibrate’ button from time to time to bring them back to their most accurate.  

In our lives, we too can drift into unhelpful and inaccurate ways of thinking. We can believe things that simply aren’t true. In Galatians 1:6 the Apostle Paul calls these kinds of dangerous beliefs ‘a different gospel’.  

All of us can drift into false religion instead of grounding our identity in the grace of God. Just like the church in Galatia, we begin by knowing we are saved by grace, but end up ‘trying to finish by means of the flesh’ (Galatians 3:3).  

In other words, we start out trusting in the good news of Jesus, what Jesus has done, but slip into a works-based religion. We seek acceptance with God and others through the good things we do rather than through what Jesus has already done.  

We need to recalibrate.  

But how do we recalibrate our lives to ensure we stay grounded in our identity as people saved by grace? One of the many powerful means of recalibration is sung worship.  

It’s no surprise that consistently singing songs about the grace of God helps us to remain focused on that grace throughout life. Music has an incredible ability to help us memorise gospel truths. When we sing songs saturated in the gospel, we actively remind ourselves of the truths our salvation is built on. 

I encourage you to take every opportunity you have to sing about the grace of God. Sing about what God has already done for you before you start singing about what you’re going to do for God. Sing about Jesus’ finished work before singing about the work of the gospel we’re called to do.  

Sing in private. When you are in your room starting your day, on your way to work, on a working from home lunch break. Make singing about God’s saving grace a normal thing in your home.  

But also take every opportunity to sing about God’s grace when gathered with church. Declare the excellencies of his grace over your brothers and sisters as often as you can. It will build up the church and help us to become and grace grounded community. 

As we enjoy the recalibrating power of sung worship, I pray we would find our lives to be less like my wobbly slice of cake. I pray instead that we will be able to stand firm on the grace of God, remembering that he was pleased to call us by his grace, but also calls us to go on living in his grace. 

Here’s a link to a Spotify playlist full of worship songs that help ground me in the grace of God. I hope you will find they serve you too: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2xeTIiTmkofQbJJsKXEJLj?si=r8CpIxO2QFqDe-m8BhbOXA&dl_branch=1