His rest

DEVOTION

PSALMS

HIS REST

Ps 95

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 you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and 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."

NIV

This song starts out on such a positive note, but ends in a quite negative way. Let us consider for a moment the children of Israel, at least that generation God brought out of Egypt. All they saw, all the experienced from the hand of God, actually seeing the sea open up for them, the pillar of fire, hearing his voice from the mountain, seeing water flow from a rock, manna fall from heaven, and quail by the thousands each day. Yet they turned their backs on God and refused to enter the Promised Land out of fear, not trusting God. That whole generation died in the wilderness and to make matters worse, they did not get to enter into God’s rest. What does that mean? In our vernacular, we would have to say they were not saved, they did not get to experience eternal life, and they perished. They were his people, yet they refused him and so they perished. Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD. We have to learn some lesson here, never to turn our back on our Lord. We should always be shouting aloud to the Rock of our salvation. We need to always come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. If we have little musical skills with the instruments or voice, we can make music in our heart. Who is greater than God? Is there anything in this world that is greater than God? There is always the danger of our making a bunch of little gods for ourselves, but he is above any gods we would devise. He made all that is made, including us. All the earth, all the mountains, all the seas, all the dry land is his, for he established them all. There is nothing more powerful, no one more powerful, mightier, and more majestic then the LORD God. This should cause us to kneel before him, our maker. He is our God and we are the people of his pasture. Let us not wander off to distant pastures in search of greener grass, for the grass in his pasture cannot be matched. He leads us to green pastures, he makes us to lie down beside still waters. Where else can we find such peace, pure joy, such security, such rest? We are under his care. As we hear his voice, which comes to us through multiple ways, especially the voice of his word, but also through our pastor, and through that still small voice of the Spirit who dwells within us, let us hear with open hearts, soft hearts, moldable hearts so that it does not become hardened and thus in danger of refusing his instruction, his teaching, his direction, his command. Let us not test him, or try him, but yield to him so that it will never be said we will not enter his rest. As we remain in Christ, as we continue to walk in his ways, as we listen to his voice and harken to it, we will one day hear those words.

Matt 25:21

21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

NIV

Come enter my rest.