Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! ...I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from You will perish... But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God (literally, "the Lord LORD, Master Jehovah) my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.
Sandwiched between two great declarations, "God is good to those who are pure in heart" and "the nearness of God is my good", the Psalmist reveals an inward struggle that almost took him down. He became affected by "the arrogant in their prosperity" (v.3). They seemed to have the world by the tail, with no consequences to their wicked ways. Looking at their wealth and ease, he almost gave in to the idea that "surely in vain I have kept my heart pure" (vs.12-13). But he doesn't stay with this wrong headed thinking long, because of one thing. He says, "...I came into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end," (v.17). The Psalmist isn't envious of people's wealth. That wasn't the issue in his mind. He was struggling with the combination of arrogance and wickedness, with wealth; a lethal combination for injustice in the world. In his mind, purity of heart equaled God's present blessings and injustice warranted God's immediate judgment. That sounds logical to our way of thinking, but the problem with this kind of thinking is its smallness and shortsightedness. God lives and moves in the realm of the eternal and, the fact of the matter is, our world is in that same realm whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not. The problem with most of us is that we haven't grasped this; we haven't seen this. And until we "come into the sanctuary of God" we will continue to struggle with what the Psalmist is talking about. When he finally went into the sanctuary of God, he says, "then I perceived..." When we do, all of a sudden we see the whole picture and are struck with the truth of the matter, that what we see and witness in our world is not the last chapter. It is only the beginning of the rest of our eternity. I remember the first time I consented to have my eyes checked for glasses. I walked out of that doctor's office and everything was crystal clear. It was amazing! I hadn't realized how hazy everything had become. It's amazing what God can do for our eyesight when we come into His "office"; His sanctuary; The place where He restores our vision, and we can go back out into our world with the same confidence expressed by our Psalmist: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! ...I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from You will perish... But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God (literally, "the Lord LORD, Master Jehovah) my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.
Sandwiched between two great declarations, "God is good to those who are pure in heart" and "the nearness of God is my good", the Psalmist reveals an inward struggle that almost took him down. He became affected by "the arrogant in their prosperity" (v.3). They seemed to have the world by the tail, with no consequences to their wicked ways. Looking at their wealth and ease, he almost gave in to the idea that "surely in vain I have kept my heart pure" (vs.12-13). But he doesn't stay with this wrong headed thinking long, because of one thing. He says, "...I came into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end," (v.17). The Psalmist isn't envious of people's wealth. That wasn't the issue in his mind. He was struggling with the combination of arrogance and wickedness, with wealth; a lethal combination for injustice in the world. In his mind, purity of heart equaled God's present blessings and injustice warranted God's immediate judgment. That sounds logical to our way of thinking, but the problem with this kind of thinking is its smallness and shortsightedness. God lives and moves in the realm of the eternal and, the fact of the matter is, our world is in that same realm whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not. The problem with most of us is that we haven't grasped this; we haven't seen this. And until we "come into the sanctuary of God" we will continue to struggle with what the Psalmist is talking about. When he finally went into the sanctuary of God, he says, "then I perceived..." When we do, all of a sudden we see the whole picture and are struck with the truth of the matter, that what we see and witness in our world is not the last chapter. It is only the beginning of the rest of our eternity. I remember the first time I consented to have my eyes checked for glasses. I walked out of that doctor's office and everything was crystal clear. It was amazing! I hadn't realized how hazy everything had become. It's amazing what God can do for our eyesight when we come into His "office"; His sanctuary; The place where He restores our vision, and we can go back out into our world with the same confidence expressed by our Psalmist: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! ...I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from You will perish... But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God (literally, "the Lord LORD, Master Jehovah) my refuge, that I may tell of all Your works.
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