49 Remember the word to Your servant,
[s]In which You have made me hope.
50 This is my comfort in my affliction,
That Your word has [t]revived me.
51 The arrogant utterly deride me,
Yet I do not turn aside from Your law.
52 I have remembered Your ordinances from [u]of old, O Lord,
And comfort myself.
53 Burning indignation has seized me because of the wicked,
Who forsake Your law.
54 Your statutes are my songs
In the house of my pilgrimage.
55 O Lord, I remember Your name in the night,
And keep Your law.
56 This has become mine,
[v]That I observe Your precepts.
When I was a kid, there was this sense of impending danger in my mind. On one hand, we were taught that Jesus could come back at any time, and that’s still true. On the other hand, we were taught that we needed to be ready for his return at any given moment, every second of every day. Which is also true, but what did it mean to “be ready”?
I wish I would have thought to ask someone, because in my mind, that meant I had to be free from sin. And if I happened to sin, I better hurry up and ask God to forgive me. Because if Jesus came back before I asked for forgiveness, then I wasn’t going to heaven. That may seem silly to some, but many can relate, where we have this idea that God is just waiting for us to sin. What if we disobey our mom, or swear when we hit a hammer, or yell at the guy who cut us off in traffic?
Better watch out, ’cause God’s just waiting to bring down the hammer, right? Well, no, not really, and I’m not sure when I figured it out. But I do know that there came a time when I was at Bible camp, and I was in a low place. I doubted God’s very existence, and asked God to prove Himself. Minutes later, God gave me three simple words, written on my hand by a friend, “I love you.” While I had already asked God to come into my life years earlier, that moment changed my life.
Why isn’t God going to bring the hammer down? Because He loves you. Does that means we keep on sinning? Certainly not, see Romans 6 where Paul answers that very question. It does change how we look at God’s law though, just like the psalmist describes. Instead of it being a tool of condemnation, when we accept God’s love and let it change our hearts, the very law that would condemn us becomes a source of comfort.
The law itself shows us God’s care and concern for us. Much like a loving parent who puts in place boundaries for a child, God has shown us how best to live this life with His precepts and statutes. He didn’t want the Israelites to get sick, so he told them not to eat pork, and to burn moldy/leprous clothes, tents, etc. God’s love compelled Him to forbid marrying foreigners who worshipped idols, because of the detestable things they did to themselves and sometimes even their children.
So do not live in fear, for “perfect love drives out fear.” God’s love is perfect, and it is for you–today and forever. Accept it, embrace it, and live it.