2018 Weekly Devotional - Week 23
Week 23
Psalm 103
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits, 3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5 who satisfies you with good
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. 6 The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed. 7 He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. 8 The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever. 10 He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
13 As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
14 For he knows our frame;[a]
he remembers that we are dust.
15 As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
19 The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!
21 Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!
22 Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul! “
In 1953, Tenzig Norgay and Edmund Hillary summited the 29,029 ft. Mt. Everest. Mt. Everest is the highest point above sea level and the feat is considered one of the greatest adventures of all time. Seven years later two men, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard, went in the opposite direction. Off the coast of Guam lies the Marianas Trench. It is about 1600 miles long and over 36,000 feet deep in places. The team descended in a bathysphere that was specially built for the trip and had the ability to withstand the unbelievable pressure of over 8,000 pounds per square inch. The team descended at a rate of about 4 ft./second for approximately 5 hours before settling at a depth of 35,800 feet! If we were to put Everest over the Marianas Trench the distance from the bottom of one to the top of the other would be about 12.25 miles! That would get you from Boerne to Fiesta Texas, simply incredible.
As you read today’s scripture passage I hope you paid attention to all God has done on our behalf. God pardons, heals, redeems, crowns, and satisfies. He has not treated us as our sins deserve and his loving-kindness is truly amazing. But what stands out to me is that God has removed our transgressions as far as the east is from the west. I want you to think about the details of that analogy. On our earth you can go south only so far before you turn north. You can only go north so far before you turn south. But no matter how far you go east you never start going west. No matter how far west you go you never head east! These two directions are always opposite ends. When Jesus was stretched out on the cross, the right hand was in one direction and the left hand in the opposite direction. I don’t know if one pointed east and the other west, but I do know that he became the propitiation for our sins. He bore the full penalty for sin and as a result a gulf infinitely greater than that between the summit of Everest and the deepest depth of the Marianas was created. In Christ, our sin is removed from us to such a fantastic degree that we can now enter into the presence of the thrice-holy God and serve him with the deepest of gratitude. Hallelujah!
In Christ,
John