In The Good Hands
Friday, November 28
In The Good Hands
Psalm 89:14
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.
Foundations are everything, aren’t they? Walls, roofs, bridges, roads, and floors all depend on the strength and perfection of what undergirds them. So notice how the psalmist describes the rock upon which our lives stand. Notice that the foundation stone is God’s strength of character, not His strength of arms. In other words, His unchanging justice and faithfulness underpin the entire story. Why is that important? Well, because if God was only all-powerful, if He could accomplish whatever He desired but He wasn’t also all-good, then history wouldn’t end up as a testament to divine love and justice. It is God’s power that enables Him to bring redemption to completion, but it is His perfect character—His justice and love—that inspires and writes the story from the start. It’s justice and love that makes Him incarnate into our weak and frail human condition. It’s justice and love that enables Him to bear the blasphemies and scourging of wicked men and devils. It’s justice and love that keeps Him crawling up Golgotha’s Mount, never giving up till He’s given every ounce of strength He can muster. It’s justice and love that makes Him rise again three days later, walk through a wall where His fearful disciples are hiding, and reach out to the very friends who betrayed Him in His darkest hour. It’s His justice and love that transfigures the worst sort of evil hell and earth can muster—a Roman cross of all things into a fountain of everlasting life and light.
Friend, the reason every kingdom of earth eventually crumbles and gets overtaken by another is because new generations rise up that aren’t as good or as noble or as strong as the former, and they get overtaken by a greater power, time and time again. Constitutions eventually crumble. Fortress walls erode in time. The glory of Nebuchadnezzars and Pharaohs only last for a brief moment. Ah, but the character of Almighty God stands forever! His faithfulness and righteousness are from generation to generation! And our lives today are held up, moment by moment, not merely by the strongest hands in all the universe, but by the most faithful and just and merciful hands—hands that bear the wounds of our redemption.