We finished up Day 26 looking at man’s littleness compared to God’s greatness. We saw our lives summarized in two short verses of Psalm 103. We’re like grass, like a flower in the field. A wind blows over us and we’re gone.
We’re about to wrap up our study of this wonderful psalm, but we have one more word to look for in the text, and several other words to study briefly.
Assignment: Pray for understanding and a teachable heart as you study today. Then read all of Psalm 103. While you read, watch for the word but and circle every appearance of it with a red pencil or pen.
What did you find? After verses filled with the mercy and love of God, and then the almost-pathetic description of ourselves, what does David say?
“But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments.”
What a glorious little word! We’re frail, short-lived, and soon forgotten, but God’s “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love” is from everlasting to everlasting. It has no beginning point. It has no end. His steadfast love has always existed, just as God has always existed.
- Open Blueletterbible and search on Psalm 103:17. Let’s take a quick look at some words.
- We are becoming better-acquainted with God’s steadfast love and what that means in our lives. We’ve also looked at the word fear earlier in verse 13. Let’s go further into verse 17 and look at the word righteousness.
Open the Interlinear and click on the phrase him, and his righteousness.
- Notice the definitions. These are an echo of what we read in Psalm 103:6, “The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed”. Now we see in verse 17 that God’s righteousness and justice will still be there for our children and their children. (That’s good to remember, isn’t it, as we live in the chaos of our world?)
- Let’s move on to verse 18. God’s steadfast love is everlasting for those “who keep His covenant and remember to do His commandments”.
- Click on the phrase to such as keep in the Interlinear for verse 18. Copy these definitions.
- Next look at covenant. This is a big topic that merits a study all its own. We can only touch the surface here. We can see from the definitions that covenant has to do with alliances and pledges. God made covenants with man, and Jesus fulfilled man’s side of those covenants by living the perfect life that we could never live and by paying the penalty for our sins which we could never pay. When we keep His covenant, as David describes it in Psalm 103, we are not attempting to earn God’s acceptance. On the contrary, we are giving heed to the covenant in response to His great grace that saved us.
- We respond by remembering His commandments. The theme of remembering threads its way all through Psalm 103 — forget not all his benefits, God remembers we are dust. Our sins are removed, to be remembered no more. The wind passes over the flower of the field, and its place knows it no more.
The word for remember in verse 18 is the same one that is used when David says that God remembers that we are dust. It simply means to call to mind or to recall. But it implies action. God doesn’t just remember we’re dust. He acts on that knowledge and shows us compassion. We don’t just remember the commandments. We desire and seek to obey them, in response to God’s grace.
We are reminded, as the psalm comes to a close, that we offer our praise and obedience to our God, who has not only forgiven and healed us, redeemed and crowned us, satisfied and renewed us, but who has also “established his throne in the heavens”.
Our God reigns. He has bent down from His throne and crowned us with His steadfast love and mercy! Praise God! Let’s bend our knees in adoration and thankfulness before Him!
Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!
Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!
Bless the LORD, all his works, in all places of his dominion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
For your children:
We are going to have a treasure hunt tomorrow that is based on the memorization of Psalm 103. Use today to review and continue memorizing (if you have not finished) the entire psalm. Test yourselves. See how many of you can recite the entire psalm.
If you plan on doing the treasure hunt tomorrow, you will need to print out the materials for that hunt. You will also need a nice prize for the children. Consider a special treat to eat, or a good book or video to share together. Click on the version you have been memorizing (KJV, NKJV, ESV, NIV, or NASB) and print out the materials for the treasure hunt. The instructions are included in the printouts.
Cut the printouts as directed, and think up a good prize to have at the end of the hunt (a special treat to eat, a good video or book — something you can all do together as a family). When you have finished, you’ll be ready for a fun activity that will test everyone’s memory while reviewing what we’ve been learning.
