Tuesday 4/14

Into the Wilderness (week 1) Day 2

Before you read God’s Word today, ask for His help by praying this short prayer:
Lord, quiet my heart and settle my mind. Help me set aside the distractions and busyness around me. Let Your Word do more than fill my mind with knowledge; let it change my heart. Show me what is true, correct me where I need it, and guide me in how I should live. Lord, help me not only to hear it, but to receive it and obey it. Draw me closer to You through this time, and continue to grow me to live like Jesus. Amen.

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.’ ”

Reflection:
Reread v. 2 - How do you tend to approach God? With thanksgiving and praise, or with timidness and fear? 

In verse 8 the psalmist tells us not to “harden our hearts”, what have you hardened your heart to that God might be calling you to? Pastor Eric called them the “not yet” areas (forgiveness, confession, serving, baptism, surrendering), which of these areas do you find are hard to obey God in?

Go to the Lord in prayer and pray and confess those things, then ask Him to help you to trust Him more fully today.