Cancer Blog #52
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #52 – God’s Mercy in Our Frailty and Faithfulness
August 26, 2022
[Psalm 103:11-18 NASB95] 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness 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 Just as a father has compassion on [his] children, So the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. 14 For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are [but] dust. 15 As for man, his days are like grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourishes. 16 When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, And its place acknowledges it no longer. 17 But the lovingkindness of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, And His righteousness to children’s children, 18 To those who keep His covenant And remember His precepts to do them.
A favorite passage, wonderful for meditation. It begins with the vastness of God’s grace and mercy. It is so large it is scarcely conceivable, which gives us, too, an idea of the greatness of our sins and the need we have for His mercy. A passage of great comfort for us as believers, as children of this wonderful Father.
The psalmist moves into a perspective we have seen earlier: the surprising idea (surprising to me, at least) that one of the reasons God is so munificent to His children is that He knows we are so frail, being made only of dust. Of course, He is aware of that delicacy because He constructed us that way at the beginning. But we know, in a way that the psalmist could not, that God is aware of our frailty because He decided to lower Himself to come in the flesh and live among us. He too became a man, made only of dust (like the rest of humanity), feeling our weakness as much as we do.
From there the psalmist moves onto a description of our mortality, and especially the brevity of our lives so long to us. But from God’s perspective, they are so short, comparable as elsewhere in the Bible, to plants in an arid and hot environment. They grow at first, but because of the heat and dryness, the wind blows over them and they are gone. Our lives are like those of some desert flower, blooming in the morning, and yet dead and gone by evening. Yet to us, our lives seem full of days, but to God we hardly are born before we are ready to die. What a difference in perspective! A sobering thought that should teach us humility and wisdom.
And yet, there is joy at the end of this somber passage. God’s mercy is not short-lived like our lives, but eternal, forever, without end. From generation to generation until the end of history, God’s righteousness will be found always good for generations long after our place in our generation is gone. Yet, the grace and mercy requires an appropriate response. For some reason, “cheap grace” always finds its way into the view of many of every generation, and in ours in particular it seems to have gained a large foothold in our Protestant circles. The notion that there is nothing we can do to alter God’s mercy toward us is one repeated often from pulpits everywhere. This idea is a perversion of mercy. We are saved by grace through faith alone but, as the doctrine of perseverance espoused by the Protestant reformers taught, faith is never alone. Faith without works is a corpse (as James 2 teaches). It is stillborn, lifeless and useless. But, if we keep covenant and remember His precepts, as taught here, we show the life and health of our faith.
Keep your eyes, then, focused on what is important. Little time you have been given. Use it to prepare for the everlasting time in the new heavens and earth when God will show us the true fullness of His vast mercy.
Next: The Blessing of Life Everlasting