Psalm
for Today = 111:7-8
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;all his precepts are trustworthy;8 they are established forever and ever,to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
Comments:
Too often it seems that we sit in judgment on
God and his works—critics and Christians alike. Critics look at God’s driving
out of the Canaanites before Israel as the moral equivalent of genocide. Surely
they say, “Such a God is not worthy of worship.” But the psalmist provides his
commentary on such works of God…as “faithful
and just; all his precepts are trustworthy.” As I have written
elsewhere, when we don’t understand the reasons, we need to rely on a default
setting that embraces God’s faithfulness and justice.
But what about those who claim to be Christians?
Do we really live like we believe that “all his precepts are trustworthy” and
that they should “be performed with faithfulness
and uprightness”? Because we are under a different covenant we often think
that we no longer have to live in harmony with God’s commands. This is a faulty
view of the Bible that produces a life of selfishness. Jesus said “If you love me,
you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Later in the same
chapter, Jesus said, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And
he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest
myself to him.” (John 14:21)
So what are those commandments that we need
to keep? It is true that there are commands in the Old Testament that pertain
to diet, dress, and sacrifice within the Mosaic Covenant community that were
fulfilled in Christ and while continuing to be instructive for us are no longer
requirements placed upon us. Yet the heart of the commands continues. Jesus
sums them up when he said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first
commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
Because God kept his promises to liberate Israel from Egypt and bring them into the promised land the psalmist not
only responds by giving thanks but by encouraging obedience. The psalmist here in
Psalm 111 was calling for the same response from us that Jesus later confirms—love
God and love your neighbor. All the rest is about helping us to understand what
that means and how to do it “with faithfulness
and uprightness”.
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