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DEVOTION

PSALMS

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Ps 71:19-24

19 Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God, you who have done great things.  Who, O God, is like you? 20 Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up.  21 You will increase my honor and comfort me once again. 22 I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God; I will sing praise to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. 23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you — I, whom you have redeemed. 24 My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion.

NIV

We could stop and pontificate just on the first few words. Is there any better way to define his righteousness other then it reaches the skies? This carries a meaning of not having any limits, for the sky is limitless, it reaches beyond the limits of space. How can we, mere mortal man define the edge of space, the end of it, and its boundary? That would be the same with his righteousness. How holy and righteous is God? Who could explain? Even with all the words he has spoken through the prophets and all his word that is recorded for us, in order that we might know him, his character, his holiness, his righteousness, we still cannot fathom exactly how holy and how righteous he is. There is no question about all the great things God has done. We have a record of all his deeds for the people who lead up to the time of Israel becoming a people. Then what he did for the Israelites and beyond. The time of Jesus and all he did. Then God raising him from the dead so that we too have that same resurrection and ascension, just as he ascended in to the clouds in front of his disciples. But the great deeds of God did not stop there, he continues to do great things in our lives, blessing us beyond measure. Although we are not worthy, he blesses us because he loves us so much, his loves reaches to the skies. As the psalmist says, “who, O God is like you”. Even if God does bring us a trouble now and then, it is for our betterment, our learning, our discipline because he loves us. What parent would allow a child to run wild without ever disciplining them in order to restore them to proper behavior? God loves us and at times he might have to discipline us if we are running wild, so to speak. But he always does so to restore us, to bring us back into proper fellowship with him. When we are living in his manner, his ways, he honors and comforts us. We will always praise him. We may not be able to play the harp, but we can play our voice, our heart and mind and praise him for his faithfulness. We can sing, even if we cannot carry a very good tone, he loves our cheerful sound. He hears the cheer and love for him in our voice as we lift it toward heaven. Yet not only are we to praise him with our lips, we are to tell, declare, proclaim his righteous acts all day long to all who are within the sound of our voice. We know we are in the everlasting arms, the protecting arms of you O God, and we know you have already put Satan to shame and confusion. We rest in your arms, with no fear of the enemy at all. In you O God we are safe and secure.