At the time of this writing, it is the day before the general election. It feels like a lot is at stake in our country. Many are looking for a political savior to right all the wrongs. As a Christian, I realize the King of Kings is the only Savior. There will come a day when He returns to set up His Kingdom in New Heaven New Earth. I can’t wait for that glorious Day. It will be the perfect government with no way to mess it up with our sin.
While I am still here, I choose to responsibly exercise my right to vote for the candidate that is most closely aligned with the way God deals with His people. When neither candidate reflects the character of God well, I prioritize issues that are closest to God’s heart. In doing so, because God the Creator made us in His image, I must give the right to life in the womb the highest priority. Remembering all the while, this is not my true Home. I am an alien here. God gives me a glimpse of His Home as His Spirit indwells me. This is a guaranteed promise of what is to come.
At the time of this reading, we already know the outcome. Regardless of who won, they only rule as God allows. I implore you to join me in praying for those who lead at all levels of government. God asks us to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him. Let’s choose to be a part of the solution as we look for ways to serve our community and take refuge in knowing God is in control and He will reign forever.
Remembering what I am prone to forget
As I continue reflecting on Psalm 103, I am recalling the benefits of my Salvation:
Forgiving
Healing
Redeeming
Crowning
Satisfying
When I remember these benefits, my youth is renewed like an eagle – strong, overcoming, soaring! Forgetting them is a slippery slope to ruin. I need help remembering because I am prone to forget. When things are going well is when I am most likely to forget. I don’t want to have to be reminded by painful means that which I should be thankful for every day. The key is to never get over my Salvation. To always remain poor in spirit means every day I get up realizing I did nothing to earn my Salvation and I can do nothing to keep it. It is all a work of the Lord. By spending time with Him, His Spirit testifies the Truth to my spirit and keeps me gratefully humble.
I am not in isolation
It would be easy to claim the benefits in isolation, but the LORD intends me to use them as part of a greater community.1 He does this by giving me a picture of how He has dealt with His people and how He made His ways known to them.
When the LORD executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed, He is putting victims back on their feet; it’s how He went about His work.2
Psalm 103:8 quotes Moses almost word for word in Exodus 34:6-7. The occasion is Israel’s golden calf incident which sets up remembering God does not repay us according to our sins. Sin angers the LORD but He doesn’t hold on to it as He perfectly balances mercy, grace, and steadfast love with His righteous wrath at great cost to Himself.3
I am welcomed into the Family of God
If God dealt with us according to what we deserved, we would not be able to stand. But as it is, He made a way for us to come to Him. This God who can have nothing to do with sin loves a people who can’t stop sinning. So He gave His Son and made Him to be our sin so we could become His righteousness.4
Those who believe are welcomed into the great intimacy only found in the family of God.
The LORD knows us. He remembers that He made us from dust. Yet, He is abundant in His steadfast love, and decisive in removing our sin, and enduring in how He continues to show compassion to those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him.
When I contrast God’s ways with what man is like, I see man’s days are like grass and flowers that flourish for a short time but are gone when a storm comes with nothing to show they were even there.2 How does this even compare to the steadfast love of the LORD?
I will reign with Him forever.
When I first read Psalm 103:17-18, I briefly considered stipulations on the LORD’s love. But that didn’t make sense with what I already knew to be true.
David quotes from Psalm 90:2 when he proclaims the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting. I cannot grasp eternity past. I can barely wrap my head around eternity future as I long for Christ to return to set up His Kingdom. But to think God has always existed in complete self-sufficiency is more than my finite mind can handle.5 I don’t think God intended for me to understand everything about Him this side of heaven and maybe never fully. But because His Spirit lives in me, testifying His Truth to my spirit, I believe Him when He says He loved me when I was but a helpless, hopeless, sinning enemy.6
I cannot do anything to save myself, and I wouldn’t choose to even if I could,7 So, God chose me from eternity past.8 Here we learn His purpose in doing this was to bestow His steadfast love and righteousness on those who fear Him, keep His covenant, and remember to do His commandments. Those are not stipulations. They are evidences that we are His. He was already loving us with perfect mercy and kindness before we ever even considered loving Him.9
That is what His children will do and how they will act. They will become like His Son.10 He is a covenant keeping God. As He imprints His ways on their hearts, His children will hear, see, love, and earnestly obey His commands.11 And the privilege of nurturing future generations will faithfully follow.
But wait, there’s more!
In true David form, there is a “but wait, there’s more” coming.
Psalm 103:19-22 speaks of the praise that inhabits all of the LORD’s creation.
The last stanza of this Song is a call for all creatures made by God to affectionately and gratefully praise Him. The LORD established His throne in the heavens as He universally rules over His Kingdom. His angels and mighty ones obey the voice of His Word. His hosts and ministers do His will in whatever way pleases Him. All creatures in all places are called to bless the KING.
There’s nothing left for David to do but to celebrate his own access to the attentive ear of God.3 I delight in joining him as he cries out,
Bless the LORD, O my Soul!
103 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, 3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. 7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. 10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. 13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. 14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. 17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, 18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. 19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! 21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will! 22 Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Derek Kidner, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Volume 16, Psalm 73-150: An Introduction and Commentary. London: Intervarsity Press, 1975.
2 Corinthians 5:21
Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 8:16 and 5:1-11
Romans 3:10-12
Ephesians 1:4
1 John 4:19-21
Galatians 2:20
Amplified Bible. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation. Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyrightc 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Love this! Thanks for sharing Julie!
Thank you.