Monday, August 07, 2006

The Great Severe Mercy, Authoritative Word of God, and OUR HOPE

The title of the blog is from my pastor's sermon yesterday of which I am listening to now. This was during his prayer at the beginning. He preached on the role of women and men in the church. you can click on the Summit's www on the right to find it and listen to it.
I'm reading Ps 33 today and there is so much joy and righteousness in that psalm. The first three verses are all about our response to the God who saved us and grants us a great severe mercy.
I love verse 4-5
For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

This has to apply to the written Word of God. If you believe that God-breathed the Word (the very words in the original transcripts) to the authors (Paul, Moses, David, etc) - then the Bible - the one you hold in your hand, is upright. That is opposite of wrong or sin (us).

Verses 6-11 has to do with what He has done with His very Word: creation and counsels his people.
I loved today listening to the thunder of a great afternoon storm that was blowing through the triangle. That thunder (yes, done by air movements or molecules or something - go to www.weather.com if you are into that) - is done by the very Word of the Lord. That is the God I serve.

The bookends of this psalm is praise. This is the end... (v 20-22)
Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

We HOPE IN YOU. OUR HEART IS GLAD IN HIM! Look at the good news of these two phrases. we place our hope in the almighty, everlasting, alpha and omega GOD who created the entire universe from nothing (include us from dust in His image). Our hearts are not glad in other things that will let us down or people who will eventually hurt and betray us - but our hearts are glad in HIM (look at the description in previous sentence).

Doesn't that give you even a glimmer of good news - even for a Monday.

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