Dave White
A great brother of ours shared a marvelous passage with us Sunday morning at church. It is a psalm that speaks of God’s abundant love, and I want to draw a wonderful revelation from it to share with you.
“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to His children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” (Psalm 103:8-14)
All of these verses are tremendous! Earlier in the psalm, it speaks of God’s justice. How He truly does punish the wicked. Here, it continues the same thought but speaks of God’s mercy and grace. While one attribute of God is His anger against sin, His heart overflows with steadfast, faithful, loyal love. He does discipline His children, as any good parent does, but He does not stay angry. God’s default emotion is love. He says, “I love you THIS much” and stretches out His arms to demonstrate that love. “[A]s high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love.” Not only does He love us, but He acts on that love by removing our tyrannical sins from us “as far as the east is from the west.” The psalm paints a picture of God’s fatherly love, the perfect Father: perfect in love and justice and truth and affection and peace and comfort and adoration. God is crazy about His kids!
So many wonderful truths! But I want to focus especially on the last sentence: “He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” First, a disclaimer: God does not approve of, nor is He the author of, sin. That said, God designed you. He formed you with all of your wonderful attributes and abilities. Also, He formed you with specific weaknesses and things you might consider to be flaws. (He, however, does not think of you that way. You are His precious child, and He loves every part of you, even the parts you might not fancy.)
We are human. We are imperfect. He is God. He is the summation of all perfection. In His perfect knowledge, He knows that we are human. He knows that we are weak. “He remembers that we are dust.” In His perfect love, He does something about that. Because we are sinners and cannot rescue ourselves from our condemned state, He decides to rescue us. He puts on dust and incarnates as a humble, little baby. He humbly lives the sinless life, and He humbly bears the penalty for your sin and for my sin. Then, He triumphs over Satan, sin, and death and offers us new life with Him. It is our holy hope that:
“…in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet… we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:52-58)
If you know Jesus as your Savior, you have that! You are His child! He adores you! And even though you’re not always perfect, like He is, one day, we will be shed this earth-suit and put on a new body, a better one, with no Curse. Until then and continuing after that, He loves you! So press on! Sure, you’ll stumble and fall from time to time, but that’s ok. Get up and keep going! He knows who you are. He fashioned you and happily understands that you trip up a lot. He watches you like how I watch my niece as she walks and runs and dances and sometimes falls. I smile when she falls (as long as she doesn’t get harmed), because it’s cute and I love her.
If you have trusted in Jesus and what He has done to remove your sins, then you are a child of God, and He always delights in you, as you dance and trip and fall. Let your knowledge of His delight in you cause you to delight even more in Him. If you have not trusted Jesus, you should! Read more on our blog, or read what we’ve posted here, or find a Bible and read about what Jesus did for us.
Peace be with you, friends.