regardless of how i got there, it was a short passage and yet, it made me think.
8 Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,9 "When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work.10 "For forty years I loathed that generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways.11 "Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest. --Psalm 98:8-11
Wow. i tend to err on the side of God's love and grace and mercy, and sort of gloss over the whole wrath thing. I know that He vehemently hates sin because it screws up His image-bearing creation, but thinking that the God i know and love swore they would never know His rest?! wow, that's pretty heavy stuff.
so i take into consideration what got them there in the first place. they tested and tried the Lord, even though they had seen Him at work. they hardened their hearts in the wilderness (which, at my bold and blind assumption because this was written in Psalms and not Exodus, that the wilderness is referring to the time he lead them out of Egypt, and across the Red Sea, and they spent their years wandering; again, not a Bible scholar).
how do our hearts grow hard? how do we test God, even though we have seen His faithfulness? do we doubt Him with finances when He's provided miraculously before? do we hold onto bitterness because we are in the right, even though He's shown us grace when He has every right to smite us? In Romans, Paul writes that since the beginning of Creation, God's glory, power, and divinity have been clearly illustrated through the creation, and that we have no excuse to not see the evidence. are we then still looking at His beauty and majesty reflected through the goodness of His creation and still doubting that He can move molehills in our own lives?
maybe i've grown comfortable in my faith, as I've turned over grievous behaviors and sinful nature over to the Lord; yet, I am not perfect. i am still a sinner, trapped by the condition of sin that was born into this world after the fall of man. i'm still selfish, and bitter, and don't favor my neighbor. i am still lazy on saturday and gluttonous with chocolate, and i don't spend nearly as much time serving those lower than i. but I know that is covered by grace at the cross, and He is growing me closer to who He intended me to be.
this verse woke me up to remind me that it isn't so much the action of sin, stealing, lying, drunkenness, immorality, etc., that drives the Lord to loathing His people. it is a condition of the heart, these verses tell us; as they have hardened their hearts, and were a people who err in their heart. in 1 Samuel 16:7, God tells us that we don't see things the way He sees them; we judge based on outward appearance (or my loose translation of what we see, we get; actions included), but the Lord judges our hearts.
friends, how many of you look in a mirror sometime while getting ready, before you leave the house in the morning? i'll admit, there have been a few days i hadn't realized until i got to school that i still had yesterday's eye make-up on (don't judge my outward appearance!). but for most of us, we never leave the house without taking a look at the mirror and making sure our appearance is put together. friends, i urge you to check your heart each day as you walk out the door as well. seek out any tiny impurities that clog up filtration process. trust that God is God, and what He said He will do, He will do. do not harden your hearts; He longs to give you rest under His faithfulness. live in fullness of that.
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