Harden Not Your Heart; Rejoice!

Psalm 95

O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.

For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,

Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.

Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:

Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

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Harden not your heart; but, rejoice and enter into God's presence with thanksgiving. He has done great things for us. Let us look to those things that He has done instead of dwelling on the evil so often found in this world.

Do not spend so many hours looking back at would have been nor worry about what tomorrow might bring. But, live each moment that God has given you more fully and you will find a whole lot less to worry about. Harden not your heart as humankind is so prone to do; but, look around and rejoice in what God has done for you. Rejoice and live the life that God has given you.

God's Peace - Pr. J.

Listen To His Voice

So, as the Holy Spirit says:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
     do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
    during the time of testing in the wilderness,
 where your ancestors tested and tried me,
    though for forty years they saw what I did.
 That is why I was angry with that generation;
    I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
    and they have not known my ways.’
 So I declared on oath in my anger,
    ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

                                                                                                              (Heb 3:7-13 NIV)

It was not only Israel that has seen and heard what God had done for them. If we are honest with ourselves; we, too, have seen and heard what God has done for us. God has done great things for all people. Yet, many refuse to see. They refuse to hear. They harden their hearts as in the great rebellion. They refuse to follow in "the way." Sadly, those who continue to rebel against the Lord our God will never enter His rest as He has promised. Sadly, some of those people who reject Him are people that we care about and love. It is up to those who do believe to continue to encourage others and remind them that it is a privilege and a blessing to hear his voice. It is up to God's children to remind all people to listen to Him.

May God open our ears to hear and our eyes to see and our hearts that we might desire to listen and follow in His way. 

God's Peace - Pr. J