A Word from God's Word

“As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”

Psalm 103:13

THERE'S NO WAY AROUND IT: I am getting old. Recently, a friend (graciously) used the term “middle-aged” with reference to me, and I replied that the only way I am middle-aged is if I live to be 130. As we look again this week at Psalm 103, it is clear to me that I have rounded the corner on "flourishing" and am now approaching “gone and remembered no more”. And if that was the conclusion of the matter, it would be most distressing. 

Yet Psalm 103 continues with an all-important “But…”. “But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him” (Psalm 103:14).

The believer’s earthly existence is indeed like grass, for perhaps he lives his “threescore years and ten” (Psalm 90:10), but then the end comes. The end of life in this world, but the beginning of a story without end. The beginning of life forevermore in the very presence of God.

How can that be? It can be because “the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting”, and not for this life only. And what sort of mercy is this? It is mercy based not on anything in us, but based on Christ’s death on the cross, where He died in the place of the believer. And to whom does this mercy come? To those who “fear Him”; to those who trust in Christ as their only hope in life and death.

Pastor Craig publishes  "A Word from God's Word" weekly in the "Kootenay News Advertiser".