"Making it Real" -2

"Sing unto the LORD with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm." (Psalms 98:5)
Maybe there should be something that needs to be said for those that actually do walk away, because I don't think I really covered those very well; or should I even go there at all? And what if anything does any of that have to do with this verse? Well, if you really want to get real about this thing we call the "Good News," and whether or not you can loose something that you never purchased to begin with, then it might just be reason enough to sing, and maybe even break out a harp in the process. We see these illustrations of angels strumming harps in the clouds; we maybe not so much anymore, but they were really popular in the old cartoons that depicted a character being killed and going to heaven. There is really nothing special about this instrument, other than it is something used for making music to sing by. The biggest point to having it mentioned, twice at that, is that it is something which you need to have in order to play upon. In other words, you have come prepared to worship! It's really nothing much more than that, that you have prepared your heart to worship because you know what you are singing about and why you must sing it; it's a proclamation, which means that you are proclaiming something which you believe to be true. The harp just represents an instrument that you have in hand to make the music or melody you will be singing by; which means that you have prepared yourself to sing a song. This is pretty much the opposite of just bursting into song or praise out of the blue; something which might have taken place while in prayer or while you were thinking of all the good things God has done in your life. No, this is about the attempt to make yourself ready to worship; something that requires you know up front what you will be singing about and why you are singing it in the first place. Does that make any sense at all? Maybe not; and then again, I still don't get why God loves me like He does, or why He puts up with my stubbornness...
"Now, dear brothers and sisters -you who are familiar with the law -don't you know that the law applies only while a person is living? For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law and does not commit adultery when she remarries. So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who has raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to it's power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit." (Romans 7:1-6) NLT