Tag Archives: the Lord has compassion

GRACE – PERFECTLY REVEALED IN THE FATHER’S LOVE

Christian Life, ,

GRACE – PERFECTLY REVEALED IN THE FATHER’S LOVE

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him; for He knows how we were formed, He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13,14

The more I read Psalm 103, the more amazing the treasures I find in it. Perhaps what amazes me the most is that David understood and experienced God’s grace in a time when grace was foreign to the people of God.

How did David recognise God’s grace? He encouraged his soul and his inmost being to praise the Lord by remembering all His benefits. He enumerated the many blessings he enjoyed in his fellowship with God, the most obvious being the forgiveness of his sins. Perhaps he wrote this psalm after his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba and expressed the relief and gratitude he felt when he experienced the grace of forgiveness.

Like David, we are also the recipients of God’s unending grace. What are the benefits we enjoy which should call from us a continuous song of praise to God? Surely, God’s grace in the many ways we receive it from Him.

What is this grace of which we speak? God’s grace is certainly His unmerited favour, lavishing on us what we have not earned and what we do not deserve. But there is another aspect of grace which we may miss, that is, God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It is by grace that we are rescued from our lives of self-destruction. We could never have done enough to save ourselves from our sin but, through Jesus, God did it for us and now, like David, we can say, “Who forgives all your sins…”

David must have also experienced something of God’s grace in the fatherly love and compassion He lavished on him. As I read the psalm, I can almost feel the tender embrace of a Father who knows we are frail, human and transient, like the grass which comes and goes in a day. David had only faint inklings of the Father whom Jesus came to reveal fully by living a human life as a mirror image of God. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. There can be no greater evidence of grace than this.

It grieves me that so much of current gospel preaching ignores God’s fatherly heart for His people. The story of the prodigal son puts it in a nutshell. God wants us to come back into fellowship with Him and to enjoy His love for us as our Father. It’s great to have our sins forgiven but it doesn’t stop there. God wants us home with Him, now and forever.

Many of us live as orphans. We are fatherless – not having either an earthly or a heavenly Father.  Jesus says, “I am the way…no one comes to the Father but through me. Let me take you to the Father.”

DAY THIRTEEN – PSALM 103

Devotion, ,

DAY THIRTEEN

“As a father has compassion on his children,

so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him;

for He knows how we are formed,

He remembers that we are dust.”

Psalm 103:13,14

COMMENT

As children of God we have every reason to praise Him because He always acts towards us in compassion.  Compassion means love in action.  Because He made you, He knows what you are made of – dust.  That means that you are neither valuable or durable.  Your worth doesn’t come from who or what you are.  It comes from the one who made you and what He put into you, His own breath and His own life.  That changes the picture altogether.  Although you are a frail human creature whose life can be snuffed out in an instant, you are of infinite value to God and He treats you like a beautiful but fragile treasure. 

PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING

Focus today on God’s compassion towards you.  He treats you like a delicate piece of porcelain, valuable but fragile.  He doesn’t come and crush you or put burdens on you too heavy to bear.  He treats you with tender love.  That’s good reason to praise Him today.