Love for Others

 

When I did the analysis of Praise, My Soul, The King Of Heaven I linked most of the verses back to Psalm 103. So today I want to take a deeper look into Psalm 103 specifically verses 6-14.

The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
    his acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
    nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
    nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
    so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust.

There is a lot packed into these verses. It starts off with a reminder that we are loved. God loves us and will take care of us, he will show mercy and grace. His love does last forever and his anger does not.

Then we get to the part that we cannot simply glance over. And that is the fact that we are sinful. We will never be truly worthy of Him. This is important because without sin then why does His love mater. With sin His love excels. He is able to separate us from sin. This is not something we are capable of. We live in a world where if you disagree with someone we think they should be fired. We are not able to separate people from anything they do, not even by inches. God can remove the sin farther then our fragile human minds can fathom.

And that is how it closes, with the acknowledgment that we are nothing. We are weak and it is another opportunity for love to shine.

You don’t have to like everyone, and you certainly don’t have to like everything someone does. But you do have to love them and show respect for them. Love them because you are loved so much and you want to share with them even the smallest glimpse of what that unending love truly looks like.