Psalm 139 Ramble

Consider with me these words of the psalmist.

 

 

"O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O LORD, You know it all.
You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.” – Psalm 139:1-6

 

 

Our Lord is no stranger to our longings; He by His very nature knows us better than we could possibly know ourselves. “Intimately acquainted with all my ways”, the psalmist writes. INTIMATELY. Do we even grasp the implication of this? The God who created all that has ever been or will be concerns Himself with the infinitesimal details of our finite lives. Remember who this God is when you read these words. We are not talking metaphorically, rather very specifically and exact. The Lord scrutinizes our paths and our lying down. Grasp at this for a second. The Lord understands you; He knows what makes you the person you are. He formed you before the reality of time, before creation was realized. This very One who made life burst forth, placed us among His creation to take part in His gift of life. Everything we are belongs to Him. Creation exists because He spoke. And He searches my thoughts, what does he expect to find?  He does it for us to know Him, not because there is anything in our minds that would entertain Him. Our life is for one purpose only, and in that purpose we have fulfillment offered. Fulfillment is offered in the privilege to join creation in praising its creator as infinitely worthy as we find our place in the mission of God. The sun rises day after day with calculable consistency because there is a creator that spoke purpose to the sun, and the sun dare not find a purpose greater than which it was created to carry out.

The Old Testament's Job, Pleads for Jesus

Coming out of the advent season, I am struck with the reality of the divine establishing complete unification with humanity in the person of Jesus –Son of David and Son of God.

As I was reading through the story of Job this week, God revealed to me what I have missed countless times in reading Job – Job’s plea for Jesus. And while I hardly believe Job understood his prophetic cry, I do believe it was prophetic through the sovereignty of the Lord.

Job 9:27-35 (NIV)

“If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,
I will change my expression, and smile,’
I still dread all my sufferings,
for I know you will not hold me innocent.
Since I am already found guilty,
why should I struggle in vain?
Even if I washed myself with soap
and my hands with cleansing powder,
you would plunge me into a slime pit
so that even my clothes would detest me.

“He is not a mere mortal like me that I might answer him,
that we might confront each other in court.
If only there were someone to mediate between us,
someone to bring us together,
someone to remove God’s rod from me,
so that his terror would frighten me no more.
Then I would speak up without fear of him,
but as it now stands with me, I cannot.”

There is much more going on in this passage and story that I will not comment on here, but at least one thing is clear. In anguish, Job confesses his and (in the greater context) all of humanity’s guilt before righteous God and the need for someone to stand in the gap. The justice and righteousness of God demands propitiation. Jesus Christ was God’s foreordained mediator to pay with His life the price for ours, so that we can boldly stand before the throne of God, free of terror. As His blood bought children, we stand in Jesus’ righteousness as He represents us to the Father.

1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NIV)

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time.”

Colossians 2:13-15 (NIV)

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”

May we bask in this glorious gospel that is our hope, and unashamedly proclaim what Jesus has accomplished for the Father’s glory and our salvation.