Gratitude or Grumbling? – Psalm 95
Is gratitude considered extra credit? Is giving thanks above and beyond?
Or is gratitude essential? Is it necessary? Is it right?
And is grumbling and complaining simply a lack of etiquette?
Or is grumbling rebellion against God? Is complaining evil?
The Bible teaches that complaining and grumbling are not minor issues, but serious sins.
Likewise giving thanks to God is appropriate because God is a source of all we have.
Psalm 95 Oh come, let us sing to the LORD;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!
3 For the LORD is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
4 In His hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are His also.
5 The sea is His, for He made it,
and His hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!
7 For He is our God,
and we are the people of His pasture,
and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you hear His voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put Me to the test
and put Me to the proof, though they had seen My work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known My ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in My wrath,
“They shall not enter My rest.”
Further Study: Ps 7:17; 50:23; 75:1; 92:1; 100; Col 2:6-7; 3:15-17; 4:2; Eph 5:20; 1 Thes 5:18; 1 Cor 4:7; Phil 2:14; Rom 1:20-22; 8:28; Jude 14-16;Heb 3:7-19.
Books: Practicing Thankfulness by Sam Crabtree
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom