Praise!

January 14, 2022 (Friday)

 

There are times I like to settle into the Psalms. Especially when the writer soars in praise. “Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O Lord.” [Psalm 36:5 – 6 NLT]

 

In Hebrew poetry, the writer rhymes ideas. We have four parallel ideas and four parallel similes. The ideas are unfailing love, faithfulness, righteousness, and justice. The similes are “as vast as the heavens,” “reaches beyond the clouds,” “like the mighty mountains,” and “like the ocean depths.” The basic idea is we are to imaging God’s actions toward us as amazing beyond imagination.

 

We experience God’s unfailing love. Unfortunately, our culture has reduced love to a warm fuzzy feeling. While I’m not against feeling good about and with someone, bur love is also demonstrated and expressed in action. Yes, we “feel” love but we also experience it. How unfailing is God’s love? The answer is a vast as the universe.

 

Experiencing God’s unfailing love, we begin to examine God’s faithfulness. How good do we have to be to enter Heaven? How bad do we have to be to go to Hell? These are not fair questions, but we tend to live our lives as close to the line as possible. Trouble is there is no line. There is nothing that says our behavior causes God to love us any more (or less) than He already does. Come to think of it, there is nothing in anyone that deserves God’s love. Just as ancient cultures looked at the clouds and wondered what was beyond them, we are to wonder how far God’s faithfulness to us extends.

 

Mulling over God’s faithfulness, we come to consider God’s righteousness. Why does God save someone and allow others to “perish?” (see John 3:16) My theological perception is people chose Hell over the saving love of God. The image of God’s righteousness being like “the mighty mountains” shows us how firm it is. Mountains have two sides. I currently live just under a mountain ridge. The mountains either break the fury of a storm or trap it over us. None of us can live up to the righteousness of God and stand condemned. On the other hand, we are given Jesus’ righteousness apart from effort. (see Romans 3:21)

 

The final piece of today’s picture is God’s justice. Just like God wants to save, God will deliver justice. We have all sorts of demonstrations and riots over “justice.” We see an authority figure behaving badly, inappropriately, or carelessly and people are gathering with signs and cameras are there to cover the unrest. We demand justice. Careful what you ask for… God is not a respecter of persons. (see Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11) Justice is will happen to everyone.

 

Let’s talk about Hell again. In ancient cultures “the ocean depths” was an image for the place of the damned. In the ocean depths everything is crushed (except the creatures God designed to withstand the pressure). In God’s justice we are all crushed in an eternal and inescapable horror we call Hell. Is there any escape?

 

We depend on God. If He cares for even the sparrow, which the Jews of Jesus day judged insignificant, how much more does God care for you? To find the answer consider the vastness of the universe, the solidness of the mountain, and the mysterious crushing depths of the sea. In all the infinities we can conjure, contemplate, or comprehend, none can match the act of love of Jesus exchanging Himself for the sinner on the cross. (see 2 Corinthians 5:21)

 

Only in Jesus is there an escape.