PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Psalm 95
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” (Psalm 95:11)
The Lord promised to give his people rest.
For some reason they kept refusing that rest.
If you read v.11, it sounds like God is having a tantrum.
The word for anger is ‘nose’ or ‘face’, where our emotions show.
In other words, the Lord’s frustration is written on his face.
The Lord will not force us to accept rest if we don’t want it.
We are invited, even urged, to find rest in him (Matthew 11:28-30).
We are free to reject it, and God promises (“on oath”) to respect that.
If we don’t want God’s rest, we won’t experience God’s rest.
I hear Jesus pleading with pained heart for people to come to him.
“How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks
under her wings, and you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37)
The invitation stands: trust in Jesus and you will find rest.
But he promised to respect our wishes; he will give us what we want!
PRAYER
Lord, you want me to experience your rest. I want to experience your rest. May the blessing of resting in you show in me, that others may want it too!
When I go on vacation and travel – spending nights on a campsite – I’m am ‘warmed’ by the beauty and awesomeness of creation – I look up and I see the handiwork of our creation’s Father – my heavenly Father. How can I then be cool to that as in the Psalmist’s command that is re-iterated from God:“Do not harden your hearts”. My heart softens and I am humbled instead and it calls me to try that much harder to please my God! Oh that be true for all my children and grandchildren too – may they also soften their hearts and also have the grace and compassion that Jesus has! Work on my heart O Lord and draw me closer to you!
Choose life.
Adam had a choice and so do I.
He is my Creator and I need to serve Him. Listen to Him and worship Him. My God is an awesome God. Just see Him in this His creation – the seasons, the crops growing, the rains, the birds of the air . . . All are in His care and so am I. I am His and He is mine and His banner over me is love, the love I need to share with those around me. Spirit of God continue to work in my heart so that I do not go astray but follow the way.
1 Spirit of God, who dwells within my heart,
wean it from sin, through all its pulses move.
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as you are,
and make me love you as I ought to love.
2 I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
no sudden rending of the veil of clay,
no angel visitant, no opening skies;
but take the dimness of my soul away.
3 Did you not bid us love you, God and King,
love you with all our heart and strength and mind?
I see the cross— there teach my heart to cling.
O let me seek you and O let me find!
4 Teach me to feel that you are always nigh;
teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,
to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
teach me the patience of unceasing prayer.
5 Teach me to love you as your angels love,
one holy passion filling all my frame:
the fullness of the heaven-descended Dove;
my heart an altar, and your love the flame.