While most people agree that love implies strong feelings of affection, there are many disagreements about its precise meaning, and one person’s “I love you” might mean something quite different than another’s.
Some possible definitions of love include:
- A willingness to prioritize another’s well-being or happiness above your own.
- Extreme feelings of attachment, affection, and need.
- Dramatic, sudden feelings of attraction and respect.
- A fleeting emotion of care, affection, and like.
- A choice to commit to helping, respecting, and caring for another.
- Some combination of the above emotions.
There has been much debate about whether love is a choice, is something that is permanent or fleeting, and whether the love between family members and spouses is biologically programmed or culturally indoctrinated. Love may vary from person to person and culture to culture.
Looking today at Psalm 103:1-5, 8-13, 17-19 we will see that we can call upon the name of God because He Loves us deeply.
David loved God because he knew how much God loved him. Was it God’s willingness to prioritize another’s well-being or happiness? Was it God’s desire to meet the needs of those who would allow it? Was is God’s respect for humanity to allow it to choose it’s own path? Was it God’s choice to commit to helping, respecting and caring for humanity? Was it something else?
Throughout Psalm 103, we hear David’s appreciation for God’s love. So lets learn from David.
Psalm 103: 1-5
The Forgiving God Of David.
1 My soul, bless the Lord, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
2 My soul, bless the Lord, and do not forget all his benefits.
3 He forgives all your iniquity; he heals all your diseases.
4 He redeems your life from the Pit; he crowns you with faithful love and compassion.
5 He satisfies you with good things; your youth is renewed like the eagle.
The Hebrew word for soul is nephesh and comes from the verbal form meaning “to take breath.” The soul represents the breath of life in an individual. It is the “stuff” that makes you a living being. Three times in this passage, David reminds his soul to bless the Lord. The Hebrew word for bless is barak and carries the concept of kneeling, or to salute or to greet. It basically means to WELCOME, greet and be hospitable. David wants his soul, the very thing that gives him LIFE to welcome, greet and be hospitable to Jehovah (YHWH, or Yehowah) the very God that gave him life in the first place.
As we learned last week, worship is the response of a reverent heart to the magnitude of God. We also learned last week that David would always remember fondly and think upon God with gratitude because of God’s Majesty. Jehovah had told the people Israel to not forget him, yet at most every turn it seems that they forgot God as rapidly as a college kid away from home and on their own. They “forget” the parents until they are “needed.” David “reminds his soul” to not forget all of the benefits that Jehovah gives.
He lists these benefits to be:
- Forgiveness: The character of God is such the He is always ready to forgive if people turn to Him in repentance, ready to again learn and live with God. When you are genuine in seeking God’s forgiveness God will let it go and will forgive. As the Bible points out, the only thing God won’t forgive is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Blaspheme, from Church Latin which meant "revile, reproach," hence blame, was from Greek blasphēmein "to slander," from blasphēmos "evil-speaking.” Be careful of the message you communicate about God’s Holy Spirit.
- Healing: “He heals all your diseases” David tells us. God has provided a body, a “human suit” in which our soul lives. The “human suit” sometimes functions less than optimally, or functions incorrectly resulting in disease. It is safe to say that when your body heals from a disease it is because of God’s design and the functioning of your “human suit.”
- Redemption: The word used indicates to set someone free from slavery by the paying of a price. You might think of it as “God pays our back taxes so that we may once again be free to live life for God rather than for the tax man.”
- David says God redeems your life from the Pit. A pit is a hollowed out place in the ground. It might be a cave like in which Jesus was buried, it might be a cistern like Joseph was thrown into, it might be a grave in which the dead are buried. It is an expression meaning that it is GOD that rescues your life from such a burial place.
- Faithful Love & Compassion: The word used for faithful describes faithfulness in fulfilling promises and obligations. It is a way of describing the dependability of God. “If GOD said it is good then you can depend that it WILL BE good, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”
Compassion illustrates showing favor. God “crowns us” with compassion. Like nobility the compassion of God in our lives is like a crown that demonstrates to others the compassion of God. It is our crown.
- Satisfaction: The word used describes satiation, that “just right” amount of nourishment that brings contentment. Not too much. Not too little, but rather that “sweet spot” that satisfies and contents.
God in our lives beings such satisfaction. Unlike those who forget the goodness and Love that is God and who can’t seem to find any contentment or satisfaction in life, we can experience the “sweet spot with God” frequently. This is what David was always remembering fondly. The contentment and satisfaction his walk with God brought.
- Youth renewed like the eagle: The double meaning here is that the Lord moves swiftly like an eagle to renew and heal, and people received renewed youth and power from God.
Youth is a period of transition from the dependence of childhood to adulthood's independence. When we become dependent upon someone or something, for whatever reason, we become as children. We become dependent.
When we become as youth, we become no longer dependent on that object, but, like youth who are not quite mature independent adults, we are “set free” to “be more independent than we were.” It restores our strength, determination and courage.
But how MUCH Love does God have? Let’s see what David tells us.
Psalm 103: 8-13
8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.
9 He will not always accuse us or be angry forever.
10 He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities.
11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love
toward those who fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.
Yet, instead of our being repulsed in fright, his compassion draws us to him in love. He realizes our situation and he offers compassion to help us deal with it.
- Is Compassionate: the word used, rachum, is used only of God, and it emphasizes his attribute of compassion. A related term refers to a woman’s womb. We are so wrapped in God’s nurturing love, like a baby in the womb, that the love is akin to the love a woman has for her child.
- Is Gracious: This word, channun, is also used only of God. It describes his readiness to aid those in need. It is, like the word agape, or caritas, indicative of having the welfare of the other foremost in mind. God’s grace flows from his great love for his children. God meets the needs of his children to the extent that they allow him to meet their needs.
- Is Slow to anger: The word used here, ap, literally means nose, or literally: “God is slow to nose”. The imagery is that of blowing. God is slow to “get huffy”, or to “blow his bellows destructively.” Over our lifetimes we screw it up so often, yet God understands our “youthful inexperience” and only becomes angry when we refuse to make necessary changes in our behavior.
- Is Abounding in faithful Love: The word used here, rab, indicates an abundance. An abundance of quantity, size, age, number or quality. God’s faithful love is greater than is “necessary.”
- Will not always accuse us: The word used here means “to strive with to grapple”…
- Or be angry forever: The term natar literally means “to guard.” I like to think of this concept as “God won’t wrestle with us forever.”
Sometimes it seems that we “wrestle with God.” Sometimes it seem that God is “angry with us.” But David tells us that while this may be true for instances, e.g. when the Israelites made the golden calf to worship, it is not an eternal anger, and eternal accusation. When we choose to correct our errors, God chooses to “forget it” and we move on from there. This is HOW we learn – screw up, suffer the consequences, learn from our errors, move on from there.
- Has not dealt with us as our sins deserve: Because we are not “wholly God” we will always “miss the mark” of the the Holy God’s standards. Often when we “screw up” the outcome should have been much worse than it was, but for “some reason” the outcome was not as bad as it should have been. Our sins deserve death and separation from God, but God has chosen to offer us ONE WAY to avoid that penalty: realize your error; desire and seek an ACTIVE relationship with God through his anointed savior; learn as you continue to strive to “do better”; trust that God has your best interests at heart.
- Has not repaid us according to our iniquities: In Hebrew David is using a word play. Repay is gamal. Benefits is gemul. So David called on his soul to remember God’s gemul that he doesn’t gamal for sins. A benefit of God is that God doesn’t pay the wages of sin –death.
- Is as faithful as the heavens are high above the Earth. In David’s era the heavens was everything that you could see looking up. In our era we can now conceptualize, somewhat, that the “height” of the heavens is so big that just the area of it that we can perceive takes light 15 billion years to cross…and that there is even more that we CAN’T see because “light isn’t fast enough to get to us in time.” This is an incomprehensible height! And those that respect and revere God can experience this incomprehensible love.
- Removes our transgressions from us as far as the East is from the West. Um…East and west will NEVER meet because they are in opposite directions. Lest you think that East meets west when traveling the globe that applies to a physical object restricted to the surface of Earth’s sphere. The direction of east and west are “straight line” directions that never meet. Metaphorically our transgressions are removed from us in a straight line clear across the universe, a MINIMUM of 15 billion light years away, and as many more as the unlimited universe extends.
Kind of like the “number of infinity” it can not be expressed because there is always “infinity plus one.” Stated simply, our transgressions are removed from us to bother us no more. But for how long?
Psalm 103: 17-19
17 But from eternity to eternity the Lord’s faithful love is toward those who fear him, and his righteousness toward the grandchildren
18 of those who keep his covenant, who remember to observe his precepts.
19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.
So…how LONG does God’s Love last? In one word, permanently. The etymology of the word eternal is from Latin describing enduring, permanent. In the Hebrew the word olam indicates a long time, or always. So David tells us that God’s love for his children is “from always to always.” How LONG is eternity past to eternity future?
This faithful love is extended to those who fear God, and his righteousness [is extended] toward the grandchildren of those who keep his covenant.” The word used for righteousness is tzdeaqah and is from tzadeq meaning just (upright) and righteous (straight) in one’s character and conduct.
In the Old Testament, it was the Israelites who entered into a covenant with God. Today, in the New Testament era, it is those who entered into the covenant God has made through the blood of his Messiah, Jesus. Jehovah desires to pour out his love upon human beings, but they must approach God on HIS terms by way of the covenant he has made through Jesus.
A covenant is a vow between two individuals. Humans who wish to “marry” God can’t dictate terms to the sovereign creator of the universe. The sovereign has already established the “laws” by which all of the universe operates and we must adhere to them or experience the adverse effects, e.g., learning first hand that trying to disobey the law of gravity leads to a “bad fall.”
David teaches us that God has established the “rules of the universe.” We must observe these “rules”, or as I like to call them:
- PRINCIPLES: From ancient words indicating first grasp the word principle means origin, source, beginning, rule of conduct, and basic assumption.
- PROTOCOLS: A protocol is acting in accordance or agreement with a certain standard, model, or original. Principles are the starting points of protocols (think Ten Commandments). Protocols are the rules for taking action according to our principles (think 613 Jewish laws created by humans).
- PRECEPTS: A precept is a rule of conduct or order. Where principles are the first things to grasp in developing a code of right conduct, and protocols are the standards by which we live, precepts coalesce principles and protocols into specific action ideas and examples.
For those who LIKE parliamentary procedures this is metaphorical to Constitution, Laws, and Administrative Rules. God has given us the universal principles to grasp first. Humanity has drafted those principles into protocols for living. We develop these into our own precepts for how we live OUR lives.
The closer we adhere to God’s Principles the closer we walk with God. But whether we walk closely with God or we are “miles apart”, as long as our desire is to walk with God, then WE get to experience the results of how closely WE HAVE CHOSEN to walk with God. Either way we can call upon the name of the Lord because he loves us deeply.
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