23Love the LORD, the all of His loved ones. The LORD
guards faithful ones and repays abundantly one doing pride.
Verses
23 & 24 wrap up this glorious Psalm and, since I’m loathe to leave it, I’ll
just park on verse 23, then move on to 24! What a blessed journey this has
been. I said at the beginning that for me, there is nothing like the Psalms.
In
the Psalms, in particular, it seems to me, we meet the Lord in all the
greatness of His glory. In a sense, the Psalms leave behind even thoughts of my
own duties and obligations and it seems here we truly see His face. To see Him
is to be changed. To see His greatness raises my meager faith. It opens my
blind eyes. Seeing Him makes me want to serve Him better … and it just seems to
me there is no other book of the Bible where we see Him so clearly as we do in the
Psalms.
This
Psalm has certainly been no disappointment. I love again that the entire thing
starts with the words, “In You …” “In You” – that’s where everything starts! That’s where everything is and ought to be.
That’s where His people long to dwell – in the secret of His Presence – all day
every day, in everything we do, everywhere we go, very consciously depending on
Him for our strength and wisdom and for the power to love. And, speaking of
love, that is where our verse 23 begins.
Think
about it this way: As David wraps up this Psalm, what should he say to pull it
all together? For ourselves, having read verses 1-22, and as we would rise from
our desk and go out to live, how should we be different? What would be the very
best way to apply all this glorious truth from verses 1-22? What does it say
now in verse 23? “Love the Lord.”
“Love
the Lord, all you His saints.”
There
you go.
Isn’t
that awesome? Notice, He doesn’t say, “Get out there and do a bang-up job
serving Him!” It doesn’t even say, “Repent of your sins!” It doesn’t say a
hundred thousand other things that we might have assumed that it would or
should. It says, “Love the Lord.” That is what the Lord Himself wants from you
and me.
Someone
may object, “But the fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom!” – to which I will reply, “Yes, it is – but it is
only the beginning. The end of wisdom is to love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” If
you seek the Lord for no other reason than that you fear hell, good for you.
But when you find Him (or rather, you discover He’s found you), you’ll find yourself drawn into a love that goes far beyond
your wildest imaginations – immeasurably more than you could have ever asked or
thought.
To
know the Lord is to know love. He is love. Again, we and the whole world
have innumerable ideas of “what He wants from us.” But what does He say? “Love
the Lord.” Mary got it right. Martha didn’t. Mary understood to know the Lord
is not first and foremost to be drawn into His service. It is to be drawn into
His love!
I
would very much like to discuss how knowing His love is the well of grace that
enables you and me to learn to love others. But I’d rather leave this post
simply enjoying knowing that the very relationship that He calls me to, the response
that He wants from me, the very life He wants me to live, is to love Him – to enter
into a very personal, very real love relationship with my Father God. And, can
I say, knowing Jesus, that doesn’t come as a surprise – or shouldn’t.
No
wonder Paul wrote in Gal 2:20:
“I am crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life I now
live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for
me.”
Love
the Lord, all His people!
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