4 Oct 2015

31 Days: The God Who Dwells in Steadfast Love

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God who Dwells in Steadfast Love

The longer you know a person – the more you know their character.  You can normally predict how they are going to act in or respond to a situation before it even happens.

I’ve only known my husband less than five years.  I suspect that when twenty years pass I will know him even better than I do now. Same with my children – how their little personalities are taking shape – how they will be even when they wake in the mornings.

David had walked with God for quite a while at this point in his life. David had known the Lord while David was a boy, a shepherd, a warrior, an animal-wrestler, a king, a husband, and all the while a sinner. In my thought, the greatest attribute or character trait of God that covers everything is his steadfast love.  This is especially true for how He relates to sinners.

David calls on this early in this heart-penetrating psalm.  He pleads for the Lord to act according to his steadfast, constant, unchanging, never fading love. The reason I think he does this is because he has truly experienced the steadfast love of the God. He has known that never-changing love of His Shepherd King.

Amazing how this works. And so telling to think of how much I’ve experienced this love and then how I often I fail to love others in the same way. Whether it is to friends who have hurt me or my sons who have disobeyed – how I’ve not shown an unconditional love in response.

The gospel has given me this love.  This gospel will allow me to persevere when I fail in demonstrating this love. This gospel will keep me at the feet of Jesus – having my wear head covered in this unfailing love.

Psalm 51:1

More reading: Genesis 15; Songs 2.4

 

3 Oct 2015

31 Days: The Who God Shows Tender Mercies

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The God Who Shows Mercy

Parenting has taught me a lot about this idea of mercy.  I think children need both discipline and mercy.  Of course they need to learn obedience, but they also need to be shown mercy sometimes when they fail.  They need to be shown mercy if for no other reason that to get a fuller picture of the God that created them.  Mine need mercy so they won’t spend 4 hours in time out each day.

I am a daughter.  I have a merciful heavenly Father.  I am so thankful that he shows me great mercy every day.  How often do I speed without getting a ticket?  How often do I say something out of anger or spite to a family member only to be shown radical mercy and not what I deserve?  How often do I sin and am not struck down dead like some in the Bible?

I think if we realized the holiness of God and the sinfulness of our hearts than we would always start every prayer with mercy pleas.

David knew a trusted communion with God and he know he had sinned greatly.  That communion was broken.  The only was David was going to be in a right relationship with God again was if that just God showered mercy down on him. So, he opens his heart wrenching psalm with this plea.

This mercy that God showed to David didn’t stop there.  All of God’s mercy toward us was brought to completion on the cross.  Christ took all of the wrath of God for us – in other words – he got no mercy from his just Father.  He got penalty, he got death, he got the absence of His Father’s presence.

In Christ, let us also rejoice and plead for great mercy.

Psalm 51:1 ” Have mercy on me, O God.”

Other readings: Psalm 86:5; Psalm 145.9; Ephesians 2:4-5, Hebrews 4:16