Tuesday, September 1, 2020

30 Days 30 Psalms -- Day 26

Psalm 130

This Psalm holds many good memories for me. When I was in college, I was a member of the college choir. I went to a Christian college, so we often sang religious music as part of our repetoire. One of the pieces we performed was a musical setting of Psalm 130 composed by John Rutter. It led to a life-long appreciation of Rutter's work. I highly recommend his music to you.

This Psalm has a great message. It begins with, "Out of the depths have I called unto thee O Lord." No matter how far down we get in life, we can call on the Lord knowing that He will hear us. Even when we have turned from God for many years, when we call Him, He will come to us.

Verses 3 and 4 are among my favorite in the Bible. They tell us that the Lord is not extreme in keeping track of our sins. Instead, He forgives and is merciful.

God is not up in Heaven looking down and just waiting for us to do something wrong so He can punish us. This was the way that God was presented in the church of my youth. It is a distored picture of God that can hinder our relationship with Him.

God loves us. He is merciful and forgiving. That shouldn't make us want to sin more. Knowing how much Good loves us should cause us to do more of what pleases Him, and stop doing what displeases Him.

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