oh, how He loves

Some music and lyrics that have been on my mind this weekend - I've bolded the phrases I've found to be particularly noteworthy.


Where are You, God of the heavens above?
Why do You hide from our pain?
With questions and weeping I call on You now
Your presence is all that I need

I bring my confusion, helpless request
This empty and transient world
To the God who has answered me well in the past
The God who's acquainted with pain...

I will trust in the One who's established His might
The Servant who's reigning on high
Whose unfailing mercy is solid and clear
I patiently wait here in peace
His presence is all that I need
(Where Are You, God? by Sharon Tedford)


God says, “Rebuild the road!
Clear away the rocks and stones
so my people can return from captivity.”
¹⁵The high and lofty one who lives in eternity,
the Holy One, says this:
“I live in the high and holy place
with those whose spirits are contrite and humble.
I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.
¹⁶ For I will not fight against you forever;
I will not always be angry.
If I were, all people would pass away—
all the souls I have made. 
~Isaiah 57:14-16, ESV

¹⁷ The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.
He rescues them from all their troubles.
¹⁸ The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
~Psalm 34:17-18, NLT

Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You.  ~Psalm 63:3, ESV

² For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?

³ Send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling!⁴ Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.

⁵ Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

~Psalm 43:2-5, ESV

 

²⁵ I know that my Redeemer lives,and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
²⁶ And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God.

~Job 19:25-26, NIV 1984

 

 

Perfect salvation, all is at rest

I in my Savior am happy and blessed

Watching and waiting, looking above

Filled with His goodness, I am lost in His love!
(Blessed Assurance by Fanny Crosby)

 

 

Death could not keep Him imprisoned

He burst through the shackles of hell

He settled the score with the evil one

and heaven applauds the King

The fullness of Christ is my treasure

I've cast off the past with its shame

The power of the Father has raised me to life

I'm a son, I'm forgiven and free!
(Pageant of Triumph by Dave Fellingham)

 

 

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

~Romans 8:31-39, NIV 1984

 

 

I hear the Savior say, "Thy strength indeed is small

Child of weakness, watch and pray

Find in Me thine all in all."

 

Oh praise the One who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead!
(Jesus Paid It All by Elvina M. Hall)

loves like a hurricane

Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You.  (NIV 1984)

Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise You!  (NLT)

Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You.  (ESV)

Because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee.  (KJV)

In Your generous love I am really living at last!  My lips brim praises like fountains.  (MSG)

~Psalm 63:3




I cannot wrap my head around this verse.  I totally understand the logic of it: if you believe that God's love is better than life itself, it seems only natural that your response would indeed be praise.  But what does it mean that God's love is better than life??  Better than life.  God's love is better than life!  I just can't quite get my head around that phrase.  What does it mean in my life?

(I looked for commentaries on this verse and found a paragraph written by Timothy Cruso, a 17th century English Puritan who was supposedly friends with Daniel Defoe)

"The love of life is a very frequent and pernicious snare, which a sense of God's love must deliver us from being entangled by."  I had to look up the word pernicious to get a full sense of the meaning, and it means "having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way."  Cruso could not be more spot-on in this sentence.  What things in my life entangle me?  My love of comfort, for sure.  Being comfortably fed can become a huge trap for me if I let it.  Being entertained by books or movies, instead of doing homework or practicing.  Staying home and watching TV instead of going out and investing in relationships I know God is calling me to strengthen.  Spending my money on clothes and accessories for myself, when I know I need to be saving it or giving it to His Church instead.  But God is so much bigger, so deserving of honor and glory and praise - how can I possibly love "life" better than Him??  What is "life" if not a gift straight from God, to be lived in praise to Him?

"What so desirable as life, if a man have no place in the heart of God? This is the greatest temporal blessing, and nothing can outdo it, but the favour of the God of our life; and this excels indeed. What comparison is there between the breath in our nostrils, and the favour of an eternal God? any more than there is between an everlasting light and a poor vanishing vapour."

I love the bolded phrase.  God is the one who gave me life, yet what comparison can be made between anything else and Him?  "To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with Him?"  (Is 40:18) His love caused Him to send His Son into the world to die for my sins so that I could be saved, redeemed, reconciled, made new.  "And I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God's love."  (Romans 8:38) Paul knew.  Paul understood.  He fully and totally believed with all his heart that God's love was indeed better than life, and he praised Him for that.  After all, what does the verse say? 

"My lips will glorify You."  "My lips shall praise Thee."  "How I praise You!"  "My lips brim praises like fountains."  How can I do this in my own life?  Back to the commentary, this time by Thomas Sheppard...

"Is it possible that any man should love another and not commend him, nor speak of him? If thou hast but a hawk or a hound that thou lovest, thou wilt commend it; and can it stand with love to Christ, yet seldom or never to speak of him nor of his love, never to commend him unto others, that they may fall in love with him also?...Can it stand with this life of love, to be always speaking about worldly affairs, or news at the best; both weekday and Sabbath day, in bed and at board, in good company and in bad, at home and abroad? I tell you, it will be one main reason why you desire to live, that you may make the Lord Jesus known to your children, friends, acquittance, that so in the ages to come his name might ring, and his memorial might be of sweet odour, from generation to generation."

I will be honest and admit that I have very few specific ideas as to how I make my Savior known in my day-to-day life at school.  This will just have to be another thing to add to my endless list of things I need to be praying about.  Meanwhile, I'm still gnawing on the ideas of the verse...

"Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You."

God, show me what that verse really means and how I can tangibly live out that verse at school, at home and in my community.  I recognize the astounding truths in that verse - now help me understand them and practice them!