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"Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds."

~ Psalm 36:5

 

In this psalm, David depicts the depravity and deceit of sinful man.  He then contrasts this with the steadfast love of the LORD.  As believers in Jesus Christ, we have been rescued by this steadfast love from our state of depravity and deceit.  We have been given a righteousness not our own.  The steadfast love of the LORD is precious, and we must faithful live this out as true in our lives.

Consider carefully the descriptions used by David of sinful man in verse 1-4.  Read and reread them, letting them soak in.  Recall the ways in which this was you in your unregenerate days.  Reflect on how the tendrils of these things remain entangled with you even now that you are regenerate.  May this sober truth humble you before your God and his Word.  Let not the foot of arrogance come upon you (v.11).  May you never flatter yourself in your own eyes as a means to conceal your iniquity (v.2).  Instead, may the fear of God be ever before your eyes (v.1).  May you always reject evil (v.4) and accept good. 

Then, turn your eyes and your heart and your mind to your God, to his precious steadfast love (v.7).  Consider the vastness of his faithfulness, righteousness and judgments.  May you ever grow in your knowledge of him (v.10).  It is only by his light that we see light (v.9).  And the greatest light he has granted us to see is that of salvation, the fountain of life (v.9).  In Christ we take refuge (v.7), in him we have a feast of abundance and a river of delights (v.8).  The abundance of these delights is inexhaustible!  Pursue them day after day by seeing, accepting, valuing and displaying the steadfast love of the LORD as precious above all else.  Be faithful and upright in heart (v.10) because of what Jesus has done for you, is doing in you, and will do through you.