Daily Devotion

July 23, 2006

Psalms 106:3 Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times.

What praise, what beatitude, what truth!

At the end of the long road of life, we take stock of our existence. If we are honest in our assessment, we see that whenever we followed God, kept His judgments and did righteousness we were blessed; and that whenever we stubbornly clung to our own ways pushing to fulfill our desires we created our own doom. We also realize that if we had done things God’s way all the time, we would have been blessed all the time; but we didn’t. We didn’t because our human nature is such that it fights against the ways of God (Romans 7:18-23).

What then? If the very nature of which I am made keeps me from the very blessedness God intended for me, what good is it for me? Is the above scripture the teasing of a God who satirically enjoys setting before His children ‘cookies’ that are impossible to reach? Maybe this statement is to blame for the present attitude of a world who decided to indulge in pleasures today because ‘tomorrow we die’. After all, what good is it to put forth the effort if it is impossible?

Yea, my friend, it is impossible; but the things which are impossible with men are possible with God (Luk 18:27); the end of man’s strength, is the beginning of God’s opportunity. In this prophetic statement, David saw the living Christ, the one who would take upon Himself the sin of the world, the embodiment of the perpetual levitical atonment blood of sacrifice, the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

How many of us whose hearts have been sprinkled (Exodus 12:7) by the blood of the Lamb Jesus Christ still, subconsciously, define righteousness through our own ‘works’ and attitudes? A lifetime may not be enough for us to grasp the fullness of His mercy.

Don’t we remember what Jesus taught us, that it is the altar that sanctifies the gift, not the gift the altar (Matthew 23:19). Jesus is the altar, the lamb and the shed blood. Let us now lay ourselves on the altar of His person, to be healed by His broken body (Luke 22:19) and by His stripes of righteousness (Isaiah 53:5); to be forgiven by His shed blood of atonement (Matthew 26:28). Let us give up all personal attempts at righteousness, knowing that His blood, and His blood alone is able to make us walk in God’s judgment, doing His righteousness all the time.

Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

Patrick Lumbroso
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