Psalm 95
Psa 95:1 Oh come, let us sing to Jehovah; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation.
Psa 95:2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise to Him with psalms.
Psa 95:3 For Jehovah is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
Psa 95:4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the strength of the hills is also His.
Psa 95:5 The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.
Psa 95:6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before Jehovah our maker.
Psa 95:7 For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today if you will hear His voice,
Psa 95:8 harden not your heart, as in the day of strife, as in the day of testing in the wilderness;
Psa 95:9 when your fathers tempted Me, tested Me, and saw My work.
Psa 95:10 For forty years I was grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they have not known My ways;
Psa 95:11 to whom I swore in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest.
The one thing that really jumped out at me was that this psalm is pretty much divided into two sections:
One, an invitation to praise God (1-7).
Two, a warning not to let your heart harden (8-11).
Note how the invitation ending in verse seven flows into the warning beginning in verse 8: "Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart..."
God calls out to us to worship Him. We were created to worship Him.
How often do we hear Him calling to us, and we let our heart turn away? We're too busy, it's a bad time, I'd be embarassed, It'd be too expensive. Every time we turn away from worshipping God, our heart gets a little bit harder, a little more caloused. The more caloused you become, the easier it is to ignore the tug of the Lord. The more you ignore the tug of the Lord, the more caloused your heart becomes.
Do you see the vicious cycle it creates?
Jesus Christ can break that cycle, but we have to turn to Him. We have to make a conscious decision to allow Him to work in our lives.
====
FP adds the following commentary:
There is much that could be said of this Psalm. I will comment just on one area that has been laid upon my heart.
True worship of our Lord must come from the deepest places of our heart. It is genuine, not forced, not pretended, and not unduly restrained. Joy in the Lord reveals fervent love and praise. Also at times, tears- joy and repentance.
This Psalm encourages an open expression of love and joy for the Lord Jesus.
My meditation of this took me to Luke 19:36-40. Jesus was being led into town on a young donkey and folks were being openly vocal and praising the Lord. Jesus was asked by the Religious Leaders to rebuke those praising Him. He told the Pharisees that the very rocks would cry out if he told his disciples to be quiet.
Jesus tells us that honest worship should not be silenced, should not be stifled.
Those that read the words of Christ and do not hear the Rocks crying out are deaf indeed. Many in churches today do not see or hear the admonitions that Christ has left us; that troubles me much as you know. Jesus did little in places where unbelief flourished.
Jesus said that in the future, meaning us, that the true worshipers would worship God in Spirit and Truth.
Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot hear the very Rocks cry out, can we? The Holy Spirit is not a visitor. The indwelling Holy Spirit gives us the Joy, the Discernment, the Longing for our Lord.
Jesus is the Cornerstone, the one that the Builders rejected.
A cold hard heart goes along with spiritual deafness and blindness. I have been in bible studies where the Nth degree of the law is discussed, but the spiritual meat is totally left out. Discernment comes from the Holy Spirit. I believe that lack of discernment is invasive in the body of Christ. Seeing without perceiving, hearing without understanding, practicing religion without praising, and you know the rest....
The very rocks are crying out…
Psa 95:2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise to Him with psalms.
Psa 95:3 For Jehovah is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
Psa 95:4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the strength of the hills is also His.
Psa 95:5 The sea is His, and He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.
Psa 95:6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before Jehovah our maker.
Psa 95:7 For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today if you will hear His voice,
Psa 95:8 harden not your heart, as in the day of strife, as in the day of testing in the wilderness;
Psa 95:9 when your fathers tempted Me, tested Me, and saw My work.
Psa 95:10 For forty years I was grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they have not known My ways;
Psa 95:11 to whom I swore in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest.
The one thing that really jumped out at me was that this psalm is pretty much divided into two sections:
One, an invitation to praise God (1-7).
Two, a warning not to let your heart harden (8-11).
Note how the invitation ending in verse seven flows into the warning beginning in verse 8: "Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your heart..."
God calls out to us to worship Him. We were created to worship Him.
How often do we hear Him calling to us, and we let our heart turn away? We're too busy, it's a bad time, I'd be embarassed, It'd be too expensive. Every time we turn away from worshipping God, our heart gets a little bit harder, a little more caloused. The more caloused you become, the easier it is to ignore the tug of the Lord. The more you ignore the tug of the Lord, the more caloused your heart becomes.
Do you see the vicious cycle it creates?
Jesus Christ can break that cycle, but we have to turn to Him. We have to make a conscious decision to allow Him to work in our lives.
====
FP adds the following commentary:
There is much that could be said of this Psalm. I will comment just on one area that has been laid upon my heart.
True worship of our Lord must come from the deepest places of our heart. It is genuine, not forced, not pretended, and not unduly restrained. Joy in the Lord reveals fervent love and praise. Also at times, tears- joy and repentance.
This Psalm encourages an open expression of love and joy for the Lord Jesus.
My meditation of this took me to Luke 19:36-40. Jesus was being led into town on a young donkey and folks were being openly vocal and praising the Lord. Jesus was asked by the Religious Leaders to rebuke those praising Him. He told the Pharisees that the very rocks would cry out if he told his disciples to be quiet.
Jesus tells us that honest worship should not be silenced, should not be stifled.
Those that read the words of Christ and do not hear the Rocks crying out are deaf indeed. Many in churches today do not see or hear the admonitions that Christ has left us; that troubles me much as you know. Jesus did little in places where unbelief flourished.
Jesus said that in the future, meaning us, that the true worshipers would worship God in Spirit and Truth.
Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot hear the very Rocks cry out, can we? The Holy Spirit is not a visitor. The indwelling Holy Spirit gives us the Joy, the Discernment, the Longing for our Lord.
Jesus is the Cornerstone, the one that the Builders rejected.
A cold hard heart goes along with spiritual deafness and blindness. I have been in bible studies where the Nth degree of the law is discussed, but the spiritual meat is totally left out. Discernment comes from the Holy Spirit. I believe that lack of discernment is invasive in the body of Christ. Seeing without perceiving, hearing without understanding, practicing religion without praising, and you know the rest....
The very rocks are crying out…
posted by MarkD at 12:05 PM
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