Day 26
Read Psalm 103
The Psalms make big claims about God. Verse 8 of Psalm 103 is repeated on numerous occasions throughout the Old Testament and in the book of Psalms itself – “the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” As you read the Psalms, words like “glory,” “majesty,” “justice,” “righteousness,” and “everlasting” are used repeatedly. But, what is striking about the Psalms is that they are deeply personal. These big claims about God are not just abstract truths. They have personal relevance to the Psalmists who write them.
So, David in Psalm 103 talks about God’s compassion and grace, but it's not just that God loves everybody in the abstract sense, it is a personal love that David experiences. In verse 3 he says, “He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases; he redeems my life from the pit and crowns me with love and compassion. He satisfies my desires with good things.” It is vital to keep our vision of God personal and avoid only thinking of Him in the abstract.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor and theologian who was executed by the Nazi’s for standing up against Hitler, wrote about the importance of keeping the great claims about God personal. He talks about “costly grace” as opposed to “cheap grace.” “Cheap grace,” according to Bonhoeffer, “means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian ‘conception’ of God.”
Now it is true that grace is a doctrine and love is an attribute of God, but what Bonhoeffer means is if we just think of God’s love in the abstract there is no power in it. It is like your spouse telling you “I love you” and meaning the same thing as when she/he says “I love hamburgers.” We don’t want just a general feeling of good-will toward us from our spouse. In the same way, we don’t just want to know that God is loving in a general sense but that God loves me, personally, with all my foibles and struggles and strengths.
The difference between love in the abstract and personal love is this: understanding God’s love as an abstract idea leads to shrugging our shoulders and saying, “Ahh it doesn’t really matter who I am because God is love.” Whereas understanding God’s love in a personal way leads to a deep sense of “Even though God knows everything about me, in and through Jesus he has cast my transgressions as far as the east is from the west” (vs. 12). There is weightiness to personal love. And Psalm 103 captures the weight and beauty of God’s personal love.
Prayer
Ask God to continue to reveal His personal love for you. Take time to reflect on the idea that God doesn’t just love you with a general feeling of good will, but with a deep personal love.
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