Day 24: Psalm 95
1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
5 The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
7 for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice,
8 “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
10 For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.’
11 So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
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Psalm 95 is a hymn of praise that also includes a warning for us. The beginning, verses 1-7a, is an invitation to worship the Lord from deep in our hearts because of His greatness. We are to worship exuberantly, sing joyfully, and come to Him in thanksgiving because of who He is. He is merciful, generous, wonderful and loving. He is a great God, the rock of our salvation, the king above all, our creator and our God. He wants us to come to Him with softened hearts, submit, and surrender in faithfulness to Him and offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
The second part of Psalm 95, verses 7b-11, warns us to hear God’s voice and not harden our hearts as Israel did in the wilderness. God is meeting our needs, but maybe not the way we want Him to meet them. We want a trial- free life, but that’s not how life works. We may grumble and complain or even turn away from God when tough times happen. Sometimes we return to our stubborn, rebellious, sinful ways and become uncaring or unfeeling–even heartless.
Each of us has a choice in how we live our lives. We can choose to be people who are soft-hearted and surrender ourselves to God while offering joyful praise and thanksgiving, or we can choose to be hardhearted and turn away from Him in spite of His many blessings. This psalm sings praise to God as sovereign and calls us to be faithful in response.
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Amy Durst | Student Ministries Admin