Psalm 85
The
beginning of this psalm is another cry to the Lord to remember to be
faithful. It begins by calling God and
the people to remember that the Lord has saved them in prior days. There is a call to remind the people and God
that God has forgiven past iniquity.
There is a reminder that God does withdraw his wrath from us.
Then,
there is a natural turn to ask God to do it once more in the future. The plea is that God’s relationship would not
just be a thing of the past. The plea is
that the people will once again feel God’s presence in their life.
However,
the part of the psalm that fascinated me today is the end of the psalm. Traditionally, this psalm is interpreted as
though the attributes of love, faithfulness, peace, and righteousness are all
from God. And I believe that is a fair
interpretation. However, as my thoughts
ran with this psalm I’d like to present another way of interpreting this psalm. I don’t think the traditional method or the
method I consider below are necessarily mutually exclusive.
The end of
the psalm brings image after image of a genuine meeting alive. The first of these meetings is steadfast love
and faithfulness. Do you hear what the
psalmist is saying? God is steadfast
love. What God is looking for is
faithfulness to Him! Life works out best
when His steadfast love is met with our genuine faithfulness.
The next
meeting is between righteousness and peace.
Of course, God is righteousness.
For what does God’s righteousness look?
God’s righteousness is looking for people who desire peace with God
instead of hatred against God. God has
already offered peace to us through the forgiveness of sin; He is looking for
those people who desire such peace.
The third
genuine meeting is between faithfulness and righteousness. Faithfulness springs from the ground; again
this shows God’s desire to see faithfulness from humanity. Righteousness looks down from the sky. As we remember from the first example of
meetings that I talked about here, God is looking for faithfulness. He is willing to meet our faithfulness with
His righteousness in addition to meeting it with His steadfast love.
These
three “meetings” really caught my attention today. They demonstrate the relationship between God
and His people. Yes, God can do it all
on His own. Be He is looking for a
response from us. He desires for us to
want peace and for us to live faithfully to Him. As the psalmist says, surely salvation is
near to those who genuinely fear Him.
Psalm 86
In psalm
86 we return to a psalm of David. I
could tell that it was from David even before I read the title. There is a genuine humbleness, repentance,
and desire to follow God’s ways that comes out of the psalm. Let’s look at some of these dynamics.
First of
all, there is a serious concern for humbleness.
David takes time to praise God and remind God that it is God who will be
the subject of the nation’s praise. It
is God that David desires to worship, not himself. David calls himself God’s servant and places
himself in a subservient position. David
is clear that his life ultimately does not revolve around himself and his own
desires.
As for
repentance, how many times in this psalm alone does David ask for grace? David knows that he is not perfect, and he
knows that he cannot earn his salvation.
His salvation depends upon God’s grace.
Then there
is my favorite line in this whole psalm – and it is really the line that told
me that this psalm was written by David.
“Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk in Your truth. Unite my heart to fear Your name.” That is a line that genuinely sounds like
David. The reason it sounds like David
is because it is a line that is from a person who knows that he is not living
according to God’s ways and he is continually genuinely struggling to do so. That is what I absolutely love about
David. David knew he wasn’t
perfect. He knew he had messed up many
times. But David never quit pursuing
God’s ways. Thus, we can see the
Biblical cycle of repentance, forgiveness, and turning to God over and over in
David’s life.
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