His Right Hand

DEVOTION

PSALMS

HIS RIGHT HAND

Ps 138

138:1 Of David.

I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; before the "gods" I will sing your praise. 2 I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. 3 When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stouthearted.

4 May all the kings of the earth praise you, O LORD, when they hear the words of your mouth. 5 May they sing of the ways of the LORD, for the glory of the LORD is great.

6 Though the LORD is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar. 7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes, with your right hand you save me. 8 The LORD will fulfill [his purpose] for me; your love, O LORD, endures forever — do not abandon the works of your hands.

NIV

It might have been better to bite this one a little at a time, one stanza per day. There is a lot going on here, but the whole still has a completeness we need to see. A declaration of praise is at the beginning alone with the very character of God. His love and faithfulness are at the core of who he is. We hear people talk about the God of wrath of the Old Testament. Although he demonstrated wrath, he is not defined by that wrath, but rather by his love and faithfulness. How can a God comes to earth as flesh, and live among his people, healing, teaching, raising the dead, doing all the miracles and signs, then suffer the worst death ever to satisfy his own need for justice. In doing all that, he became the only sacrifice needed for the forgiveness of our sin. How can that define him as a God of wrath? No, we will praise you, O Lord with all our heart. Before all the “gods” or idols or whatever people put their faith in other then you, we will sing your praise. So many make a “god” of their own abilities or education or materialism/wealth for that matter. They trust in so many things other than God. But we trust in the loving and faithful God we know and we will sing his praise before all those people. We bow down toward his holy temple. Maybe we don’t actually bend a knee, especially in church as we sing praises, although maybe we should. But we do bow our heart, we humble ourselves before God. Sometimes it does seem we are humbling ourselves but rather puffing ourselves up in how well we do “worship”. But we should be of humble heart before the Lord. He exalts his own name and word above all things. If we are to be imitators of God, which we are supposed to be, then we should exalt about all things his name and his word. Do we do this? We should! He is the only one we can call on who loves us and is faithful and will answer when we call. Everything else will let us down at some time or another, but God will never leave us nor forsake us, he is faithful and the only one we can trust completely to call on and be answered and make us bold and stouthearted. At some point in time all the kings of the earth will bow before him, whether in praise or of fear, they will all bow before the living God. He is God, the high and lifted up God, the God of all that is, and yet he looks down on our lowly estate, our humble heart. He watches over us as we humble ourselves before him, but for those who are proud, those who will not humble themselves before the Lord, he knows them, but from a distant. He is not close to them, not because of him, but because of them. Their pride keeps them far from God. He tells us to draw close to him and he will draw close to us. We can only draw close to him with a humble heart. When we are close to him and him to us, whatever troubles we face in life, he is there to defeat our foes, those troubles. He preserves us through every situation in life, his right hand saves us. But we see the key is to be close to him, and that only happens when we are humble before him. If we are too proud to humble ourselves before him than we are in trouble, and life will be very difficult as our pride keeps us distant from his right hand with which he saves. So we humble ourselves. We see and understand our lowly estate and our complete dependence on the Lord for every aspect of our life, and we know we are nestled in the palm of his right hand.