I Love the LORD (Psalm 116)

Dear Christian,

Do you love the LORD? I mean really love the LORD?

This question is the test for every true follower of Christ. And it can be answered with another like it: Do you love your neighbor?

I will be honest. There are times I speak unkindly, or at least less than enthusiastically, about even my closest friends. Some of them may be unaware of my disposition to sin, but I hope they are not surprised. I am, after all, in desperate need of grace as a sinner sanctified by God. However, I am ashamed of my behavior when I act according to evil desire, because in my sin against others I know I have really sinned against God.

It is the words of John I hear most clearly rebuke me, "If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

It is startling stuff when you read it the first time. And I would argue it is even weightier the second, third, and fiftieth time as well. It is why Psalm 116 speaks to my soul today. It begins with a declaration, "I love the LORD." Without hesitation, David acknowledges his God. This is good, but is it true? If it is possible for David, a sinner, to say this authentically, how might I speak these words with conviction in my being?

Fortunately, for the reader, David provides his own answer, "because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy." He continues, "Because he inclined his ear to me." David's love for the LORD is bound up in who God is. It is not a love he can give to God out of himself, but is instead a love given back to God in response to the kindness and mercy shown to him in his distress.

And it is John again who identifies the source of this love, "We love because he first loved us." That's really all there is to it. He. Loved. Us. We cannot possibly love the LORD with any meaningful kind of love unless He has loves us first. And we are not able to love the LORD fully unless we depend on His love to guide us in our thoughts and actions.

But how will we love our friends, our family, our coworkers, and our acquaintances? Or how can we love strangers, including the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner? David replies, "Therefore I will call on him as long as I live." This is David's greatest weapon. To live as God has commanded him to live, he calls on the LORD. Therefore, to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must also perpetually call on Him who first called us.

Understand this is no simple matter. I began by asking the question, Do you love the LORD? This question, like all questions, depends on how one defines its terms. We must first ask, what is love? And also, we must define the person of the LORD.

First, then, what is love? Love in the classical sense, is often described as a feeling. Though, biblically, love is derived from God. John says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God." Continuing, he says, "Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love." It helps to point us to the source of love, but what does this love look like?

Reading further, he says, "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him." Scripture provides us the clearest example of love in the person of Jesus. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." God sending the Son of God to die for sinners' sakes tells us that the love we're after is certainly more than a feeling.

But who is the LORD? First, He is God Almighty! He is the Creator God, who made everything our eyes can see and minds delight to understand. He is the Redeemer God, who purchased a people for Himself out of slavery to sin. He is the Restorer God, who makes the elect children of God into the image of His Son, that they might have eternal life with Him.

By this we understand God's mercy and compassion for His children, that he would save a people from their sins. Listen to David, "The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the LORD, "O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul. Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful.""

We see also that God's love becomes the wellspring for His childrens' love for Him, "For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling." Though I do not instinctively or quickly agree with David, I know in my heart he speaks truthfully. For in my I struggle to affirm this truth, I weep and stumble still. 

I trust then I am not alone in my struggle. I know I do not come to God on my own. At times, pride is so great that I withdraw from Him, replete in utter shame. Of course, pride and shame, they are merely two sides of the same coin. Yet, I fear I do not approach God humbly with a contrite heart, as he has prescribed. Other times I'm not even sorry I sinned. I'm only sorry I got caught.

Yet, this is where the beauty of the gospel shines brightest! From the very beginning the LORD has shown mercy toward His children. In the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned against God, He looked upon their nakedness and clothed them with a provision of animal skin, thereby eliminating their cause for shame.

On the cross, Jesus likewise eliminated my cause for shame. His sacrifice so clothes me that I no longer stand naked before my LORD. And I am prevented from growing proud in this state. For the righteous robe I wear is nothing less than the mutilated flesh of my Savior. Yes, it is the horrible, ugly, gruesome death Jesus died that affords each Christian a covering for his sin. But without it, he will surely be denied gainful entry when he knocks on the doors of heaven.

There is more than I can say contained in this Psalm, so I will let David have the last word. He speaks of his and Christ's future together, "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living." What a marvelous hope this is! He grounds his claim in the LORD's past action, "You have delivered me." This is to say, He continues to deliver me. I may stumble in this life, yet because God is rich in mercy and abounding in love, I will one day walk in perfect righteousness before my LORD.

David concludes, "I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!"

Psalm 117 says, “Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples! For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD." Yes, Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!

Dearest Christian, do you love the LORD? Do you love His people? You are commanded to love, but not according to your own strength. Trust in His mighty provision for you. Trust Him for a covering for your sin. Trust also in His righteousness, afforded to you in Christ's death, that you might walk before the LORD in the land of the living.

Selah.

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