“Tune our hearts to sing Thy grace.” My attention was recently brought to this line in the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. It got me to asking, “What does it mean to have my heart tuned to sing God’s grace?”
Perhaps we may start with the idea of “tuning.” Serious guitar players (or musicians, for that matter) make sure that their instrument is properly
tuned. Nothing is more hurtful to the ear of a musician than an instrument playing or a singer singing out of tune. Tuning an instrument means adjusting the instrument to the correct pitch or intonation. In other words, it is adjusted to conform to a recognized standard or pattern. Only then can the instrument produce music that is worthy to be heard.
The hymn applies “tuning” as a metaphor of a person’s orientation in life: to sing God’s grace. The author of the book of Hebrews tells us: “It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace” (Hebrews 13.9 NIV). The heart is the seat of human disposition. And it is “grace” that should shape the will of a Christ-follower and determine the direction one’s life should take. God’s grace is the standard or pattern on the basis of which the Christian’s life is formed. The Christian’s heart must be in tune with the grace of God so that the life produces a “melodious sonnet” that offers the “loudest praise” in honor of the God of grace.
First, it is as recipients of God’s grace that the tuning of our hearts begins. As Paul declares: “For you are saved by grace …” (Ephesians 2.8 HCSB). And, “Whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favor [grace] on me” (1 Corinthians 15.10 NLT).
God’s grace frees the sinner from the burden of guilt and from the enslavement of sin itself. As we receive the grace of God, we are “united with him in a death like his” and “anyone who has died has been set free from sin” (Romans 6.5, 7 NIV).
Then, we become instruments of God’s grace. We have not truly known and understood grace if we do not ourselves extend grace to others. To “sing” God’s grace is much more than merely talking about the gracious work that God has done in Christ. It is living out that same grace, allowing others to experience God’s grace through us. This is because recipients of God’s grace are “his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them” (Ephesians 2.10 NET; see also Hebrews 13.15-16).
A life in tune with God’s grace is a life characterized by God’s grace.
—Keith Y. Jainga