“A tenderhearted person lives a blessed life; a hardhearted person lives a hard life.”
(Proverbs 28:14 MSG)
Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.
For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
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,
“Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
where your ancestors tested me;
they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
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.’
So I declared on oath in my anger,
‘They shall never enter my rest.’” (Psalm 95 NIV)
Tender God,
We come to you this morning, singing with joy to our Lord, our Rock of Salvation. We give you thanksgiving and we extol you with music and song because you are the Great God and King. The depths of the earth are in your hand; the mountains, seas, and dry land were created by you. We bow down in worship before you, our Creator, for we are your people, the flock of your pasture and under your care. Today, open our eyes to see your vision. Open our ears to hear your Voice. Let us not harden our hearts against your Word and your Way, especially after we see all the amazing things that you have done for your Children and for each of us individually. When our stubbornness, fears, wounds, bitterness, or unforgiveness want to transform us into hard-hearted creatures, help our spiritual ears to hear your Voice calling us to a place of love, grace, tenderness, forgiveness, and healing. Shepherd King, we ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and with the help of Holy Spirit, Amen.
“So they make Isaiah’s prophecy come true:
‘You will hear clearly but never understand.
You will see clearly but never comprehend.
These people have become close-minded
and hard of hearing.
They have shut their eyes
so that their eyes never see.
Their ears never hear.
Their minds never understand.
And they never return to me for healing!’
‘Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear.’” (Matthew 13:14-16 GW)