Yes! There is Good News! 1.28.17

Last week we began by considering that our God is good, and that He is good all the time. The vehicle we were using in exploring this topic was Psalm 103. (Have you read the entire Psalm?) This Psalm is quite beautiful in its entirety and really helps to explain so much of who God is and who we are in relation to Him.

I, for one, am amazed at how King David, in verse seven, lets us read that God made known to Moses “His ways!” It has been said that Moses is the author of the first five books of the Bible. (Actually God is the author and Moses the scribe.) And as we consider what these five books contain, we see a beautiful preface to the entire Bible. God revealed to Moses first of all, the creation, then the flood, the calling of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt and finally, the Exodus from Egypt with Moses as leader and, of course, the wanderings in the wilderness. As an overview, we get to see the perfect will of God in action.

But let’s get back to Psalms 103. Verse eight begins. “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.” A couple of comments here are in order. First, this is a reiteration of God telling Moses, on Mount Sinai, what His name was: Ex. 34:5, “The Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him (Moses) and proclaimed His name, the Lord (Yahoveh), ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger abounding in loving kindness and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin’.” David, of course, knew this scripture. And secondly, David gives us a beautiful description of how he saw the awesome attributes of the wonderful God we serve.

Verse nine: “He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever.” Yes, God is patient with us, and always willing to reinstate us into His good graces. The Israelites certainly tested God’s patience over and over again. His patience did seem to wear out when He first allowed first Assyria and then Babylon to take His people into captivity. But even then He says through the prophet Jeremiah, “Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing ... But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds ... I will restore the fortunes of Jacob ...” (Jer. 30:12 - 22).
Our God is more than just a loving Father, He is perfectly loving Father. He wants us to succeed and to be with Him in eternity. Remember how we started this article last week, “He knows our frame, that we are but dust.” We will see this phrase a little later on as we continue our look at the 103rd Psalm.

Until next time remember “God is good, all the time.”