Come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come to him with thanksgiving. Let us sing psalms of praise to him. For the Lord is a great God, a great King above all gods. He holds in his hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains. The sea belongs to him, for he made it. His hands formed the dry land, too. Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. If only you would listen to his voice today! The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, as they did at Massah in the wilderness. For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw everything I did. For forty years I was angry with them, and I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’ So in my anger I took an oath: ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’”
Psalm 95

Dear God, since these are meant to be songs, sometimes I try to imagine sitting in church and singing them. Or singing them with my family. The first half of this psalm lends itself to that picture, but the last part seems like an awkward thing to sing. But is it?

The next thing I like to do is see who wrote it (this one is unknown) and then try to put myself in their place as they pinned these words. In this case, it seems that someone wanted to acknowledge you and worship you, but part of that worship was to fear you and your judgment for disobedience. At first, that seems harsh to me–a bit of a downer for a song like this. But is it?

Father, yes, you are powerful and worthy of my worship. And yes, you are demanding and worthy of my obedience. To obey is better than to sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). So help me to worship you through both my praise and my intentional obedience. Love through me. Work through me. Enter the world through me. And let your kingdom come and will be done through me.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen