“Come to the LORD, and sing for joy;
Let us our voices raise.
In joyful shouts, let us the Rock
Of our salvation praise.” ~ Psalm 95:1
The Lord was with Joshua and directed him to have his people shout to bring down the walls of Jericho. What walls will Jesus bring down when you raise your voice to him in whom you trust and delight?
Singing Psalm 95 to tame a wandering heart toward faith
You lift your voice and ask God for something. Do you trust him as to when he does it, how he does it, and who he uses to do it?
When you ask the Lord to help you find your voice, you might also ask him to help you use it to thank him and praise him above all else. He uses means of grace like his word, his friendship, family, friends, advisors, jobs, mentors, money, food, exercise, sleep, health care, trials, and waiting to perfectly take care of you. It’s important to remember that these are personal gifts from God so that you personally thank him for them as your provider and be careful to trust in and worship the giver and not the gift.
Singing Psalm 95 and as you read through the Bible, notice what gets God’s attention. What does Jesus highlight and bring to the forefront to get your attention that helps shape what you value?
Take note of when Jesus commends great faith and great love. Of the centurion, the Syrophoenician woman, the woman with the issue of blood, the sinful woman featured in Luke 7, and the woman who offered her expensive nard, Jesus rewarded their unquestioning faith in his ability to help them and their love for who he is, their Rock.
Yet the 12 whom he chose to follow him most closely had to continually seek God to tame and redirect a wandering heart toward faith in Jesus. Notice how many times Jesus taught them that their little faith was the root cause of whatever they lacked. Even so, the mercy of Jesus is so great that he comforts us with how powerful even a mustard seed-sized faith is in him.
Although mustard seeds start small, they grow larger than all the garden plants. They become trees whose branches birds can nest within. So it is with just a little bit of faith in Jesus. He adds to and even multiplies whatever small amount of faith you start with. A small child inherently trusts his parents to care for him without demanding a 15 point presentation on their plan and a signed contract guaranteeing every stipulation. It is God who put himself out on trial promising to fulfill both his end and our end of the covenant. Prone to complaining, neediness, and naughtiness, God's people are to learn to rely on the Lord God who built the bridge of his word for you to walk across to tame a wandering heart toward faith. Jesus transforms you by renewing your mind as you follow his path across that bridge to rest in his arms like a child who, done with wandering, receives and embraces a steadfast heart.
“Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. ~ Mark 10:15-16
Singing Psalm 95 to tame a wandering heart toward humility
The Lord chose to make humans in his image, male and female. He values his people as worth more than gold and sets his love upon us. We are put through the fire so that impurities would be removed and characteristics that are of great value like faith, humility, and love would shine forth.
What we do with our bodies, where we place ourselves and with whom, how we exercise and feed our bodies, and how we think—we can choose to humbly tame a wandering heart or allow it to run wild in its wandering.
If you sense that you don't belong and never really felt at home, you will be prone to wander looking for rest. Because you don’t know what home feels like, you don’t know what you are after or what you are missing. The familiarity of unrest drives you to mistakenly anticipate rest as boredom. You might think, is it even worth seeking? Over and over you think you have found home only to learn that it was a mirage. When the Lord gets a hold of you though, he teaches you what home looks and feels like and brings you there to himself. Ah, you are home at last in his warm and comforting dwelling place where you find true rest!
Before you reach home though, your wandering heart might have diverted you to seek the esteem of men so that you experience firsthand what home is not. The path to home often involves stops that, if you stayed at any one of them, you would never enter his rest. As one of his own, you eventually make it your goal to humbly be about the business of serving Jesus whether or not others are pleased. An amazing surprise awaits you: “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” ~ John 12:26
What greater honor could there be than to be a part of the home where Jesus grew up? Yet overfamiliarity can override honor and breed annoyance or even contempt. Jesus made distinctions between his physical family and those who hear and obey the word of God, calling the latter his mother and his brothers. Reading between the lines, it seems like his family thought Jesus needed to be tamed. His brothers thought he wanted to be a celebrity of sorts and resented him for it. They didn't understand who he is and didn't yet believe in him. It is when you hold a higher opinion of your own thoughts than God’s thoughts that it is time to assess that you have been led astray and to seek the Lord to tame your wandering heart.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.” ~ Isaiah 55:9
Would you tame God, the Father of lights, the one who sounds thunder and flashes lightning? The one who made all the mountains and the spacious seas? The one who made the stars that outnumber the grains of sand on the seashores? We have surely lost our minds if we think we can do that!
Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer,
who formed you from the womb:
”I am the LORD, who made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,
who frustrates the signs of liars
and makes fools of diviners,
who turns wise men back,
and makes their knowledge foolish…” ~ Isaiah 44:24-25
Jesus, the one who knit you together in your mother‘s womb is preeminent over every part of you. Jesus owns your body, the blood that gives it life, and all that it contains. He controls all components of all your cells—from your brain, muscles, bones, organs, senses, hormones, neurotransmitters, amino acids, mitochondria, and the trillions of reinforcement bacteria that reside within—to each breath you take. Jesus gives you overflowing energy to do whatever you ought to do. Your resting, waiting, and doing is to be without stressful toil. “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” It is all prepared in advance by Jesus for you to will and accomplish whatever is pleasing to God as you abide in him who is wisdom incarnate.
“The LORD’s a mighty God and King;
Above all gods He is.
The depths of earth are in His hand;
The mountain peaks are His.
To Him the spacious sea belongs,
Made by his own command;
And by the working of His hands
He formed the earth's dry land.” ~ Psalm 95:3-5
When you look at the ocean what do you see? Is it the impersonal ocean of universal divinity? Or did Jesus create, personally design, and speak it into existence?
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son [Jesus] , in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” ~ Colossians 1:13-20
The angel Gabriel had to lock up Zechariah’s voice until he would use it to thank and praise the Lord rather than to require a detailed explanation demanding that God justify himself before him. God stretched Job through suffering and Zechariah through surprise. When your mind is filled with exacting and interrogating doubts, it is time to tame your wandering heart. What does that even look like? Becoming like children, we can learn not only how to tame our wandering heart toward faith in what God can do but also toward humility admitting what we cannot do.
Your fathers tried and tempted Me,
Though they My work perceived;
And with that generation I
For forty years was grieved.
I said, “They have a wand’ring heart,
And they My ways detest.”
I swear they should not come
Into My promised rest.” ~ Psalm 95:9-11
When we respond like Zechariah did with the angel Gabriel, we are anything but child-like. It is reminiscent of the way Israel detested God’s ways with one complaint after another. Rather than tame their wandering heart, they joined with their neighbors who did not know God and added their pagan worship practices to what God had prescribed.
“When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’”~ Deuteronomy 12:29-30
How can we take care that we are walking humbly with our God and not give way to a wandering heart, desensitized and ensnared by the way we live—our worship, the way we eat, sleep, exercise, relate to others, and manage stress? How can we build our house on the Rock of Jesus and be sure to be at home with him and enter his rest? How can we avoid straining and striving, building our house on the sand of our own understanding, abilities, and performance? Please, Lord, help us to not neglect, detest, and reject your grace of promised rest.
A wandering heart around exercise can be tamed toward humility
Ubiquitous in today’s exercise culture, yoga is sanctioned as a preferred way to exercise, an activity to stretch your body that you could do on your own, along with friends, or even with your children to promote physical health much like stretching, lifting weights, shooting baskets, playing tennis, or going for a walk or run. In fact, it is listed as an activity in the guided journal of attitudes and activities from A to Z offered on this site with the intention of being just that— an effective way of dynamic stretching. Twenty-two years ago I was gifted with 10 yoga classes which I took and enjoyed.
I was unsettled and surprised to learn some years after the journal was published that yoga is insidiously and deceptively much more than a way to exercise. Pamela Frost of TruthXchange made available the findings from her extensive research on its roots and goals. Yoga wittingly or unwittingly bends and stretches our minds along with our bodies to embrace not the Creator-creation / Shepherd-sheep distinction, which is God‘s way, but instead embraces strengthening and progressing to become a god unto ourselves without any distinction between the only true God and us. It is an enveloping attitude of Eden hidden within an activity that starts out so seemingly innocent but can quickly morph into independent pride that turns away from the Lord Jesus, the God of truth. Suppressing the truth and exchanging it with a lie might seem like a small infraction in the world's eyes but minimizing any sin won't lead to repentance and therefore leads instead to eternal suffering and separation from God. Here’s what God has to say to idols and those who follow them:
“Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing;
an abomination is he who chooses you.” ~ Isaiah 41:24
Jesus chose a people from among those he made in God’s image and made a way to restore you from the sin that severed you from God by taking on a human body, enduring misunderstandings, humiliations, and temptations, breaking that body, and shedding his blood so that you could have union with him, with God. There is nothing left for you to do to achieve that.
“For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.“ ~ Hebrews 2:18
We worship him in thanks and praise as our humble response to such a great salvation. We aren’t at rest when we seek to unite our core identity with any pagan belief system in hopes of achieving oneness with God. The Spirit that indwells those who are in Christ is God, the Holy Spirit, who is infinitely more powerful than any other spirit. God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one and work as one to bring his people home in his rest.
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." ~ John 17:20-23
“But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.“ ~ 1 Corinthians 7:17
Even if you got your body into Olympic gold medal gymnastics shape, it would not compare to the new body God has for you when the mortal becomes immortal and you are free from all encumbrances in your new resurrection body (1 Corinthians 15). It’s the difference between the most fit caterpillar and a butterfly. Why would we put so much energy into sculpting the seed when the body makeover Jesus has for us far surpasses anything we can imagine?
“Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” ~ Isaiah 41:10
When healthcare providers have recommended yoga to strengthen my core in order to improve my lower back stability, I have asked for alternatives of which there are many. So as to not give even a hint at paying homage to pagan deities, I no longer practice yoga and would not recommend it. Rather it is more beneficial by far to be engaged in the moment-by-moment spiritual battle and clothe yourself with the full armor of God (Ephesians 6). You can more profitably apply your energy to enter God’s rest seeking him to tame your wandering heart and train yourself to love God’s ways from the heart in everything you do including exercising for health.
“Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.” ~ Proverbs 4:23
We are to stretch our body like we are to eat our food—receiving both with thanksgiving as means of grace from God.
A wandering heart around food can be tamed toward humility
“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” ~ Philippians 3:19
The Lord grows the seed of trust planted as I increasingly renew my mind to assign food and exercise a much lower rank than I had assigned to them in the past. They are not larger than life. They are not to be adored. They are to be received with thanksgiving and enjoyed in moderation as gifts from God, who is the one to be praised, adored, and loved more than anything or anyone.
And at mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.” So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. ~ Ruth 2:14
Food that has been shown to be building blocks of our bodies and give us the most nutrients and energy to do whatever God would have us do should be eaten daily and in quantities large enough to benefit but not larger than to be satisfied with what our appetites can enjoy. Although no food is forbidden, the foods we find so pleasing that they are irresistible and hard to stop eating, can be enjoyed occasionally, but if they were to have a more prominent daily place on the menu, our hormones, neurotransmitters, and mitochondria would be negatively affected and over time would lead to poor health.
“If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.“ ~ Proverbs 25:16
Limiting these in both frequency and quantity is also a safeguard against developing a dependence upon any of the gifts God has given us so that God is always our Rock and greatest pleasure front and center and all other gifts are a far second and beyond in ranking. His own hand keeps the people of his pasture land.
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
“If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” ~ 1 Timothy 4:1-8
Satan is under God‘s leash. He is not, and his demons are not, equal and opposing powers to God. We are not unaware of Satan’s schemes, however, since he masquerades as an angel of light and is bent on turning every soul he can away from God‘s created order as he twists the concepts of exercise and food and of oneness and stillness to turn us away from the truth of God.
“It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.” ~ Proverbs 25:27
A wandering heart around thoughts can be tamed toward humility
The devil and his followers don't stop there but they also attempt to move God‘s crown creation of humans that he made in his own image, male and female, toward androgyny. The universalist worldview is that if you are your own god and one with the universe, then you cannot be limited to one gender, either male or female. Their worldview is in line with John Lennon’s, Imagine, where there are no distinctions, no heaven, no hell, no religions, no countries, but all are one with the universe leaving the true creator God, whose presence is our only hope for peace, unity, and understanding, out of it all together.
But take courage. Somewhere between Satan launching the arrow to deceptively curse both mind and body, God exchanges that curse into a true blessing before the arrow strikes his chosen sheep. The blessing is certain but often latent to build into you a character of living by faith and not by sight. Ironically, Jesus brings us peace by first bringing division. The good shepherd truthfully divides the wheat from the chaff, the evil from the good. The chaff is blown away and the evil is destroyed. Only then can peace abide for his sheep whose very hearts he sanctifies and sifts clean one step at a time.
“O come and let us worship Him;
Let us with one accord
In presence of our Maker kneel,
And bow before the LORD;
Because He truly is our God,
And we His chosen sheep,
The people of His pasture land,
Whom His own hand will keep.” ~ Psalm 95:6-7a
What a relief that God cannot be so easily abdicated and cast aside, but he so humbly, so patiently, and so generously gives the gift of repentance so that we can come to Jesus who tames our wandering heart and helps us learn from him how to be gentle and lowly—how to find rest in him alone for our souls and bodies—to find rest in him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. He would tame a wandering heart and enable us to humble ourselves and bow before him in worship, that we would not grieve him and miss his promised rest.
“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” ~ 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Because those that are in Christ have the mind of Christ and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, our allegiance is to him alone. We ought not to attempt to free ourselves from thought but to inform our mind with God’s word and think his thoughts after him, engaging them, embracing them, conforming to them in Christ before whom we are to be still and know that he is God and that we are not. Only when our soul is still can we properly reflect his rest to the restless, watching world so that they can stop raging against the Lord, be still before him, worship him as God, and enter his rest too.
What desires would tempt you to replace adoration for God in your heart? What substance, what activity, what music, what advice from people who seem larger than life? As opposed to chanting mantras to impersonal deities or desiring to exalt the self in a myriad of ways, singing Psalm 95 urges you to place your body and mind in the Lord’s presence and to joyfully and humbly sing to God with psalms, exalting him alone. The Lord will help you tame a wandering heart toward humility. God will give you allegiance to solely place him on the pedestal of your heart, his gifts on its fringes, and make you joyful and faithful.
“Into his presence let us come
With praise and thankful voice.
Let us then sing to Him with psalms;
With shouts let us rejoice.” ~ Psalm 95:2
Singing Psalm 95 to tame a wandering heart toward love
Which motivates you more to come to Jesus to tame your wandering heart toward faith and toward humility? Is it to know or to love?
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist…So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.~ 1 Corinthians 8:1-6, 10:31
Being present expresses love personally. There is nothing else like it that can tame a wandering heart toward love. When you avoid being present, is it that you don’t want to stretch yourself to love those who are challenging and can’t be bothered parsing through the differences?
“Let your foot be seldom in your neighbor’s house, lest he have his fill of you and hate you.“ ~ Proverbs 25:17
Or is there something you are rejecting, something you fear, or something you are not ready to express or to forgive and be reconciled with those you are avoiding? When Naomi and Ruth, her daughter-in-law, returned to Israel from Moab together, Ruth pledged to always be with Naomi and to never leave her. Yet because of the great losses that Naomi experienced, she hardly noticed Ruth and told the women of the town that she went away full and came back empty while Ruth was right there by her side. If Ruth felt hurt or slighted upon hearing those words, she must have worked through it with the Lord so that she did not take those words to heart, because you would never know it by the way she treats Naomi:
“And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied.” ~ Ruth 2:18
When you consider the Lord’s perfect love, it’s stunning that he drives away whatever inclination he might have to avoid and reject us. It is beyond comprehension that Jesus desires to be present with me each moment in spite of my deserving to be utterly cast out from his presence due to my having purposely sinned against him and a heart that is prone to wandering. How do I respond to this? Will I avoid and reject, keeping walls intact or will I raise my voice to God crying out for him to tame my wandering heart? Jesus enables me to walk across the bridge that he built so that I can be present with those who have sinned against me, willing and available to love.
“God’s cloud by day and pillar of fire by night had led and protected them during their forty years in the wilderness. But now God’s promise of His presence became personal. God would be with Joshua, just as He was with Moses. He had the greatest reason of all to take courage: God was with him. And for God to be with him meant He was for him.
“This ‘Immanuel principle’ of God being with His people is a major theme in the Bible. With the coming of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, this is even more true for us (Matt. 28:20). Whatever you face in this new chapter of your life, as a Christian you can know with absolute certainty that God is with you. This is the ultimate encouragement anyone can be given.” ~ Andy Young
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” ~ Ephesians 3:14-21
“…her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much…” ~ Luke 7:48
Singing Psalm 95 you ask God to tame a wandering heart. He accomplishes that feat by settling you, helping you remember your first love, and moving your mind to take care not to abandon the love you had for Jesus at first (Revelation 2:4). When Jesus helps you to find your voice, you use it to praise and thank him because when he has tamed your wandering heart long enough for you to listen for his voice, you hear Jesus’ astounding mercy over the loud clamoring of all your sins. There is no greater motivator than that to make you cry out to God to tame your wandering heart, to move you to express much love for Jesus and for his body, and to shout for joy when the walls come tumbling down!
“If one member suffers, all suffer together: if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” ~ 1 Corinthians 12:26-27
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” ~ John 13:14-15
“And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” ~ Matthew 25:40
Jesus knows those who love him. His love surpasses knowledge. And if you love him, know that he loved you first, he loves you still, and he will never stop loving you—his forever, beloved, beautiful bride.
“Today if you will hear His voice,
Then harden not your heart.” ~ Psalm 95:7b-8a
February 11, 2024 - September 6, 2024
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