Sun.Star Davao

The source

(Part 3)

- REV. ARNEL TAN (Read full story on sunstar.com.ph/davao)

“The LORD himself watches over you! The LORD stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon at night. The LORD keeps you from all harm and watches over your life.” ~ Psalm 121:5-7

AS the Psalmist declared that The Lord is not only Almighty, the Lord is also ever awake! Such a declaratio­n of the encompassi­ng Sovereignt­y of God shows us that God is a God who relates with His people. And in the fullness, Christ came to become like us “The Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulne­ss. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.” ( John 1:14 NLT). Pause and ponder, Psalm 121 is a preview of what’s in the heart of God. He is not only making the people go through religious rituals, He is revealing His heart that in worship God is desiring a relationsh­ip with us!

The worship of God is about entering into a love relationsh­ip with God. His Presence (The Lord Himself ), His Promises and His Protection are a revelation of the character of God that desires fellowship with His creation. Because of this His desire for our redemption is unbending!

The ultimate source of our help is also the ultimate source that desires holy friendship with us! Don’t lose the thought here, though God is very capable of rescue saving us from harm and evil, He does this because of his loving kindness that invites us to a close relationsh­ip with God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). We need to establish this invitation to a relationsh­ip before we go to the details of what God is so willing to do in terms of his promise of protection. His gracious act of rescuing us from ourselves and from the evil one is in the interest of offering us eternal redemption and thus making it a reality for a sinful human to enter into a Holy union with the Holy One!

We are greatly amiss and greatly in the wrong lane when we only look to God in terms of bailing us out of our troubles. There is no doubt He can do that, but it’s not all about that!

The real blessing here is not the security God offers the real blessing here is the Lord Himself!

No proxy! The Lord Himself! I must embarrassi­ngly admit that in times of calamity like where we are now in the middle of the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic, I long for his rescue than his offer of relationsh­ip! To be delivered from this trouble is the main thing not to be near the Lord Himself! Along this line of thought I am seeing the patience of God, that despite my many wrong motivation­s, He still saves!

I am also seeing a very personal touch of God’s redemption that is transformi­ng my heart to a grace-driven shift, from a heart that longs to be rescued to a heart that never wants to leave the presence of my Rescuer! This is truly a liberating redemption of a soul, now learning to worship!

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