I was reading Psalms 95 and when I came across verse 10, what stood out to me was that God was grieved with some of His people; people whom He had lovingly and patiently instructed in His ways. The LORD loves us dearly and He longs for us to have an intimate relationship with Him and to really know Him.
Does it surprise you that God would express such strong emotions of longing, sadness, disappointment and rejection?
In verse Psalms 95:10, He tells us that the hearts of some of His people were not right with Him and although they knew of His ways, they didn’t know His ways, meaning they were not walking in them, living them out or doing them. They were rejecting the LORD and who He is by not believing Him and living the way He had guided them in as their good shepherd. They just didn’t trust Him or really desire to know Him, they only wanted what they wanted.
How can we know what God’s ways are so that we can be a delight to Him? The scriptures below define “God’s ways” as being His statutes, His commandments, His Judgments, His thoughts, His ordinances of justice, doing what is right in His sight, righteousness, His charge and His laws.
Why is it important that we know what God’s ways are?
Jesus said if we love Him, then we would keep His commandments; and He also said that those commandments weren’t His but they were God the Father’s commandments. If we want to know God and if we want to please Him by showing that we love Him, then we need to understand how to do that. He says seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened to you.
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John 14:24
“He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s which sent Me.”
John 14:15
“If ye love Me, keep My commandments.”
John 12:49-50
“For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.”
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DEFINING GOD’S WAYS:
Psalms 95:10
“Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said,
It is a people that do err in their heart,
and they have not known My ways”
1Kings 3:14
“And if thou wilt WALK IN
My ways, to keep
My statutes and
My commandments,
as thy father David did walk,
then I will lengthen thy days.”
1Kings 11:33
“Because that they have forsaken Me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon,
and have NOT WALKED IN My ways,
TO DO that which is RIGHT in Mine eyes,
and to keep My statutes
and My judgments,
as did David his father.”
1Kings 11:38
“And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken
unto ALL that I command thee,
and wilt walk in My ways,
and do that is right in My sight,
to keep My statutes
and My commandments,
as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.”
Psalms 81:13
“Oh that My people had hearkened unto Me, and Israel had walked in My ways!”
Proverbs 8:32
“Now therefore hearken unto Me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep My ways.”
Proverbs 23:26
“My son, give Me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe My ways.
Isaiah 55:8-9
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 58:2
“Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of Me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
Zechariah 3:7
“Thus saith the LORD of hosts; If thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt keep My charge, then thou shalt also judge My house, and shalt also keep My courts, and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by.”
Malachi 2:9
“Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept My ways, but have been partial in THE LAW.”
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Ezekiel chapters 18 and 33 also declare that It is God’s way for us to confess, repent and ask for forgiveness when we sin; whether we are a righteous believer who has fallen into sin or someone who has never known God before that’s living in unrepentant sin (the wicked).
God says if a righteous person who had been obeying His commandments before, but then gave into temptation and sinned, then “the wages of sin is death” until they turn back in repentance. If they don’t, then all their righteousness won’t be remembered by God and they will die in their sins (will suffer damnation). But if the wicked who hasn’t known God before, turns from their sins by confession and repentance, then they will live and have salvation, so long as they continue in God’s covenant.
Ezekiel 18:25
“Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; Is not My way equal? are not your ways unequal?”
Ezekiel 18:29
“Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not My ways equal? are not your ways unequal?”
Ezekiel 33:12-20
“Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live. Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal. When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, he shall even die thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O ye house of Israel,
I will judge you every one after his ways.”
Being Judged after Our Ways:
2Corinthians 5:9-10
“Wherefore we labour, THAT, whether present or absent, WE MAY be accepted of Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good OR BAD.”
Revelation 20:12-13
“And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to THEIR works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged EVERY MAN according to THEIR works.”
This scripture in Hebrews from the New Testament repeats that God wants us to know, understand and perform His ways (His commandments). These scriptures are specifically speaking about the Seventh Day Sabbath of rest (not worship) which is still part of God’s holy covenant with all His children.
Hebrews 3:7-12
“Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear His voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said,
They do alway err in their heart;
and they have not known My ways.
So I sware in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in DEPARTING from the living God.”
Hebrews 4:1-6
“Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
For we which have believed
do enter into rest,
as He said, As I have sworn in My wrath, if they shall enter into My rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For He spake in a certain place
of the Seventh Day on this wise,
And God did rest the Seventh Day
from all His works.
And in this place again,
IF they shall enter into My rest.
Seeing therefore it REMAINETH that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of UNBELIEF”
Hebrews 4:9-12
“There REMAINETH therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works,
AS God DID from His.
Let us labour therefore
to enter into that rest,
lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”