Tag Archives: those who fear Him

THE MERCY SEAT

Devotion, ,

Romans 9-11 summarises God’s salvation plan for both Jews and Gentiles.

‭Romans‬ ‭11:28‭-‬36‬ ‭NLT‬
[28] “Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people he loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. [29] For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn. [30] Once, you Gentiles were rebels against God, but when the people of Israel rebelled against him, God was merciful to you instead. [31] Now they are the rebels, and God’s mercy has come to you so that they, too, will share in God’s mercy. [32] For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone.”

Paul’s conclusion led to this outburst of praise.

[33]” Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! [34] For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? [35] And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? [36] For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.”

Mercy! What is mercy? Sometimes we learn more from what the Bible doesn’t say than from what it does say.

Let’s go back to the Ark of the Covenant where the dimensions of the Mercy Seat, the gold-covered lid of the box which housed the Ten Commandments, are given. The Ark of the Covenant was the central point of the Tabernacle, God’s visual aid to teach His people the truth about mercy and to show them mercy because of the blood. The Mercy Seat was the place where Israel’s sins were atoned for by the application of blood.

I am indebted to Pastor Ken Legg for drawing my attention to this detail.

God gave Moses instructions for each piece of furniture in the tabernable including the Ark and its covering.

‭Exodus‬ ‭25:17‬ ‭NLT‬
[17] “Then make the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—from pure gold. It must be 45 inches long and 27 inches wide.”

Strangely, there is one measurement missing – its height. How was Bezalel to know how high to make the lid?

‭Exodus‬ ‭37:1‬ ‭NLT‬
[1] Next Bezalel made the Ark of acacia wood—a sacred chest 45 inches long, 27 inches wide, and 27 inches high.
[6] Then he made the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—from pure gold. It was 45 inches long and 27 inches wide.

Once again, no measurement for the height.

So, how high did he make the lid? We can only guess that he used the same measurement as for other articles of furniture in the Tabernacle.

Does the Bible give us an answer to this puzzle? Yes, it does.

‭Psalms‬ ‭103:8‭-‬11‬ ‭NIV‬
[8] “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. [9] He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; [10] he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. [11] For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love (mercy) for those who fear him;”

The Hebrew word “chesed”, here translated “love” or alternatively, “mercy”, is untranslateable in English. It takes in every facet of God’s love within His covenant, towards His people.

Think of God’s love expressed in His mercy towards Jew and Gentile alike… all equally rebels and guilty before God. What does He do? Confine them all to hell forever? No! He shows them equal mercy because of “chesed”.

David writes, in Psalm 36

‭Psalms‬ ‭36:5‭-‬9‬ ‭NIV‬
[5] “Your love (chesed), Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. [6] Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. [7] How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. [8] They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. [9] For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”

Only the incalculable dimensions of the universe can somehow, yet inadequately, describe God’s mercy….as big as God Himself.

How can we ever understand this “chesed” outside of one great event?

Sometimes a songwriter captures in words, the Father’s heart and conveys to us a tiny glimpse of what His mercy has provided for us…

Listen to the words of Keith and Kristen Getty’s song, “The Power of the Cross”…

“Oh to see the dawn
Of the darkest day
Christ on the road to Calvary
Tried by sinful men
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood

Oh to see the pain
Written on your face
Bearing the awful weight of sin
Every bitter thought
Every evil deed
Crowning your blood-stained brow

This, the power of the cross
Christ became sin for us
Took the blame, bore the wrath
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh to see my name
Written in the wounds
For through your suffering I am free
Death is crushed to death
Life is mine to live
Won through your selfless love

This the power of the cross
Son of God slain for us
What a love, what a cost,
We stand forgiven at the cross”

Only through the cross can we glimpse the dimensions of God’s mercy. This is the height of God’s mercy expressed in one crowning act.

‭1 John 4:10 NLT‬
[10] “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”

‭Hebrews 10:19-22 NLT‬
[19] “And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. [20] By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. [21] And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, [22] let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.”

This is God’s word to us today. Mercy always awaits us at the Mercy Seat. We have access to the Father through the Son. We have the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness. Our weakness qualifies us to receive God’s mercy that is as high as the heavens that are above the earth.

Our response, captured in the words of another beautiful song written by Jarrod Cooper…

“King of kings, Majesty
God of Heaven living in me
Gentle Saviour, closest friend
Strong Deliverer, beginning and end
All within me falls at Your throne,

Your Majesty, I can but bow
I lay my all before You now
In royal robes I don’t deserve
I live to serve Your Majesty

Earth and Heaven worship You
Love eternal, Faithful and True
Who bought the nations, ransomed souls
Brought this sinner near to Your throne
All within me cries out in praise.

Your majesty, I can but bow
I lay my all before You now
In royal robes I don’t deserve
I live to serve Your Majesty.”

GOD’S SECRET

Bible Study, ,

God has a secret. He wrote a whole book about His secret, revealing it bit by bit until He had told the whole story.

‭Psalms‬ ‭25:14‬ ‭NIV‬
[14] “The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.”

In the Old Covenant, God told His secret, or part of it, to His friends, those who were serious about their relationship with Him.

Only a few under the Old Covenant faintly understood God’s secret.

People like Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, and the other prophets, realised the importance of God’s covenant with His people. His secret was bound up in His covenant. They also discovered that God’s mercy was not because they offered animal blood to remove their sin. There had to be something more, but God would only reveal the full story in His time.

Peter‬ ‭1:10‭-‬11‬ ‭NLT‬
[10] “This salvation was something even the prophets wanted to know more about when they prophesied about this gracious salvation prepared for you. [11] They wondered what time or situation the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about when he told them in advance about Christ’s suffering and his great glory afterward.”

Abraham learned to live by faith in God because he believed God’s promises of a nation, a land, and blessing for the whole world through him.

‭Genesis‬ ‭12:1‭-‬3‬ ‭NLT‬
[1] The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. [2] I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. [3] I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

‭Hebrews‬ ‭11:8‭-‬9‬ ‭NLT‬
[8] It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. [9] And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise.”

‭Genesis‬ ‭15:6‬ ‭NLT‬
[6]”And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.”

‭Romans‬ ‭4:1‭-‬8‬ ‭NLT‬
[1] “Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? [2] If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. [3] For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” [4] When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. [5] But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. [6] David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it: [7] “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight. [8] Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”
[13] Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith.”

God’s secret was slowly coming clearer to the few who believed Him and obeyed His Word. They learned that it was not their obedience to God’s instructions (because they could never obey Him perfectly) or the animal sacrifices God prescribed for failure to obey His law (because animal blood could never atone for their sin), but faith in God’s mercy because He promised to forgive their sin through a new way yet to be revealed.

To Isaiah came the clearest revelation of the foundation of God’s forgiveness, some of the other writing prophets adding details to the story.

‭Isaiah‬ ‭53:3‭-‬6‬ ‭NLT‬
[3] “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. [4] Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! [5] But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. [6] All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”

Faith, not in animal blood but in the blood of an innocent person was the only way God could forgive sin. God promised that He would send His Servant to be that perfect sacrifice.

David also envisioned some of that person’s suffering as he described suffering of his own. Somehow, out of his own agony, he described the agony of the one who died in his own place.

‭Psalms‬ ‭22:1‬ ‭NLT‬
[1] “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help?..
[6] But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all! [7] Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads, saying, [8] “Is this the one who relies on the Lord? Then let the Lord save him! If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him!”…
[12] My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in! [13] Like lions they open their jaws against me, roaring and tearing into their prey. [14] My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me. [15] My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead. [16] My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet. [17] I can count all my bones. My enemies stare at me and gloat. [18] They divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing.”

So, slowly, the secret is being unfolded, a secret which God clothed in a legally-binding covenant, based on His grace, which He would make known in all its glory in due time.

To be continued…

‭

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 FOURTEEN – PSALM 103

Devotion, ,

DAY FOURTEEN

“But from everlasting to everlasting

the Lord’s love is with those who fear Him,

and His righteousness with His children’s children –

with those who keep His covenant

and remember to obey His precepts.”

Psalm 103:17,18

COMMENT

Don’t you love the assurance that God’s love for you is from everlasting to everlasting.  What does that mean?  It means that God loves you from eternity that has no beginning to eternity that has no end.  Wow!  No human being has ever loved you like that.  How many times have you been hurt and disappointed because someone you really loved ran out of love for you?  They walked away and left a terrible void in your life.  God assures you that He will never do that to you.  He cannot because He is love, and His love doesn’t depend on what you are or what you say or do.  His love depends entirely on Him and He will never run out of love or compassion for you, no matter what happens.

PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING

Why don’t you praise God today that His love for you has no beginning and no end?  He thought about you, planned your life and loved you from everlasting and will do the same to everlasting.  He wants you to know that love so that every day you will feel loved and secure even if all human beings fail you.