Psalm 89:13-14 13 You have a mighty arm; Strong is Your hand, and high is Your right hand. 14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before Your face. (NKJV)
In the last post we discussed the fact that God owns everything and is everywhere. Today we’re going to discuss His power and try to wrap everything up in a tight little bow before we move on to the next point.
Mighty arm and strong…hand both are symbolic of God’s strength. Think for a moment of the strength that is at God’s command. With just words He spoke all of creation into existence. There is none greater than Him and there is none that can stand against Him when He decides to move.
In the previous verses of this Psalm the Psalmist lays out some of his attributes. No one can compare to Him (vs 6), He is to be feared (vs7), He rules creation (vs 9), He owns creation (vs 11) and He is all powerful (vs 13). If that is all that we knew about God and were to stop at that point we would be left in a most miserable state. Human experience has taught us that the most powerful among us are usually the most cruel, when no one can question or stand against man he becomes a despot. Not so with God.
Look at His attributes as described in vs 14 of this Psalm: Righteous – God is perfectly holy, Justice – God is completely fair, Mercy – God is rich in mercy, Truth – God cannot lie. With the power that is at God’s command we will suffer if we stop after any one of these attributes, see if my thought tracks below.
God’s Holiness compared to ours –> man is doomed because of his sin. We cannot meet a perfect standard
God’s Holiness + God’s Justice –> God’s judgment of our life is perfectly fair and we rightfully deserve whatever punishment He decrees.
God’s Holiness + God’s Justice + God’s Mercy -> We are still left in a place of insecurity because even if God is merciful and reduces our punishment the chance of falling out of His favor still exists.
God’s Holiness + God’s Justice + God’s Mercy + God’s Truth -> The best place for us to be. Look back at vs 3 for a second, God says ”I have made a covenant with my chosen…”. God has made a commitment to His people and that commitment will not be broken because God is truthful. Because God is truthful we can claim all of the wonderful promises in the Bible about our eternal security. We can rest in the comfort of knowing that if we repent and confess that He will always forgive us (see 1 John 1:9), we can also know that once we are His we are always His (see John 10:28-29).
The theme behind this psalm is the covenant that God has established with David. God will keep his end of the deal because He is God. There is nothing we can do to stand against His will and there is nothing we can do to separate ourselves from Him once we are his (see Romans 8:31-39)
3 comments:
Praise God! It is so good to be His and to know that He will keep me! I love your blogging.
Keep up this blogging, I've already had the opportunity to share something from it. I see how you moved throught the four attributes (nice job), my mind winds a little different. Mercy has been for me a never exhaustive thought so the third stop seemed a good place to be while in the Way (Buyoun reference). Is it tomorrow yet? I want to read more.....
I was hoping that you'd be able to follow my track through God's attributes. It is a wonderful thing to realize we simply need to rest in his mercy and truth.
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