Psalm 36:5-6 “Lord, your constant love reaches the heavens; your faithfulness extends to the skies. Your righteousness is towering like the mountains; your justice is like the depths of the sea. People and animals are in your care.” (Good News Translation) This episode is about the Lord and the characteristics listed in this verse. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
God’s Love is Constant
Psalm 36:5-6 “Lord, your constant love reaches the heavens; your faithfulness extends to the skies. Your righteousness is towering like the mountains; your justice is like the depths of the sea. People and animals are in your care.” GNT
If there is one thing in the whole world that I am sure of, it’s God’s love for me and for His people. I know not everyone can say this. I know that some people, maybe even some of you listening to this episode are not sure of God’s love for you. Sometimes it can be hard to believe that God loves us after all we have done, or after all that was done to us. Sometimes we can’t love ourselves and we wonder if we can’t even love ourselves, then how can someone else love us. How can God love us when He knows all we have done and/or all that has been done to us. This world can be an awful place sometimes and there is a lot of evil in it. When someone does something evil to you, that is not a reflection on you. That is not who you are and that does not make you unloveable. I know I have said this before, but it bears repeating. There is nothing that you can do to make God love you any more or any less than he always has.
This verse says that God’s love is constant. Do you know what that means? It means it doesn’t ever stop, it doesn’t ever waiver, it is not dependent on anything. If something is constant it means that it is always there. God’s love doesn’t stop because you did something He didn’t like, God’s love doesn’t stop when you commit a sin, God’s love doesn’t ever stop. He has loved you since the beginning of time and He will love you until the end of time. His love is constant.
The reason I am more sure of this than any other thing is because He is constantly telling us this in our prayer group, in my prayer time, in the Bible. I bet He is constantly trying to tell you as well. Are you listening? Can you hear it? Can you believe it? Can you believe that the Lord, our God, loves you! Yes you, God loves you in all your imperfection. Here is a word that was given at my prayer group and is a beautiful visual of God’s love for us. He said, “I love you so much you cannot understand the depth of my love. If I let the power of my love loose and hugged you, I would crush you. My love for you is that great; it consumes you.” If you struggle to believe that God loves you, I ask that you talk to God about this. Tell Him your struggles and let Him show you how much He loves you. Let Him heal the parts of you that need to be healed so you can feel His love. I guarantee that nothing will ever feel as good as the love from our Heavenly Father.
Next, the verse says that God’s faithfulness extends to the skies. If you ever doubt God’s faithfulness, all you need to do it read any section of the Bible. God has been faithful to His people throughout all the ages. His people have not been very faithful to Him and yet, he always honors His word and has always kept His promises. When the Lord had Moses lead the people out of Egypt, He did not just send them Moses, and then leave them to do their own thing. The Lord’s Spirit was with them all day and all night. God said He would deliver them from Egypt and He did. He also said He would lead them to the promised land and although His people questioned Him, disobeyed Him, and went against Him, God still gave the promised land to His people. The Lord was faithful to His people when He gave us Jesus, His only Son, to die on a cross for our sins. I am sure you can turn to almost any book in the bible and find plenty of other examples of how God’s faithfulness extends to the skies.
“Your righteousness is towering like the mountains.” I had to look up the word righteousness because it is one of those words that I understand the context of, but I could not put a definition into words. I felt like this was one of those times when knowing more about the word would be helpful to understand what the sentence is saying. The definition of righteousness is the quality of being morally right or justifiable. When we are talking about the righteousness of God we are talking about the fact that God always does what is right and just. Our righteousness is limited. When we make decisions they are based on the information we have at the time and the wisdom we have at the time. However, God is not limited. This is why they are saying that His righteousness is as high as the mountains.
Sometimes we may question why God does things. We may read about things in the Old Testament in the Bible and we don’t understand how a just God could do those things. God knows what He is doing. We don’t understand it because we have limited understanding. Also, we are swayed by our emotions. We may know on one hand that our child or our students needs to learn a lesson from their actions, and yet our emotions, whatever they are, may get in the way of carrying out justice. If you know that a certain action will have a negative consequence and then you do that action anyway, you should get that consequence. However, sometimes you can be angry and so you give a more severe consequence. The opposite can also be true, you feel really bad for the person, so you give a lesser consequence. Even though these are two different examples they both like have the same outcome, the person does not learn the lesson.
God’s righteousness is towering like the mountains and His justice is like the depths of the sea. There is no end to God’s justice. God does not get swayed by his emotions. He always does what is right. Does this mean that God doesn’t have mercy? No, not at all, but it does mean that if he has mercy it is the right thing to do in that circumstance. When we make a decision we do not know what will happen afterwards. We are making our decisions based on the info leading up to that point. However, God knows not only the info leading up to that point, but He knows all that will happen after as well. For instance, He knew when He sent Jonah to tell Nineveh to repent or they would be destroyed, He knew they would repent. When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, he knew what would happen afterwards. God has 100% of the information He needs to make righteous and just decisions.
This verse is a great verse because it lets us learn more about God. Maybe you already knew all of this. Maybe you knew that God’s love was constant. Maybe you already knew that He was faithful. Maybe you knew that He is righteous and just. Even if this is the case, even if you already knew all of that. This verse is a great reminder. This verse paints a picture in my head of God surrounding me, from the heavens, to the skies, to the mountains, to the depths of the sea. God is amazing and we can learn so much about God and who he is from this verse. So I will leave you with the words of this verse, “Lord, your constant love reaches the heavens; your faithfulness extends to the skies. Your righteousness is towering like the mountains; your justice is like the depths of the sea. People and animals are in your care.”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you for loving us constantly and completely. If there is anyone listening to this episode that is not 100% sure of you love Lord, we ask that you help them feel your love. We ask that you heal whatever wounds are keeping them from your love. If it is an evil spirit then pray that you bind it and remove its power. W thank you for being faithful, righteous and just. You are so amazing and we are so grateful that you always do what is right. Lord, we ask that you help us to be faithful, righteous and just. Help us to follow in your footsteps. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.