"So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever." [Psa 73:22-26]
The passage for today shows us a marvelous attribute of God: His faithfulness. Even though the Psalmist thinks back upon a certain time when he was not faithful to God, having concluded, “I was as a beast before [Him],” he can still confidently say to Him, “nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.” What a comfortable attribute of God to meditate on. Truly something that gives life to the soul and refreshment to the mind. For we are all unfaithful at times. Even the most devoted Christian, if he is humble enough, will admit that his faithfulness to God is lacking, and certainly never reaches the degree to which Jesus trusted in The Father. And yet, even though this is true, we see here in the Psalm what Paul tells us, “if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself.” [2 Tim 2:13]
Though we are unfaithful and do not believe in God as we should all the time; yet, in those times God still abides faithful, for He will not deny Himself. Because The Father sees us as Christ Jesus His Son, and cannot deny His Son, having denied Him already on the cross for our sakes and having received Him to eternal Glory, therefore we too cannot be denied of God if we truly believe. Since we are of Jesus’ body and have The Eternal Spirit dwelling in us always, again we see that He cannot deny us. For God’s word says, “…as He is, so are we in this world.” [1 Jn 4:17b]
See too that even in these times we are upheld of God. The Psalmist says, “thou hast holden me by my right hand;” and again, “blessed be The Lord, who daily bears us up, even the God of our salvation. Selah.” [Psa 73:23; 68:19] Even though we act in the flesh, like an animal, a beast; yet God abides faithful and looks after us. He is unfathomably faithful; for there is no man who would do these things. But because His attributes are holy, because He is not like man, He can show such mercy; for He tells us, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” [Isa 55:8] God is faithful to us, to uphold us and to never forsake us. He tells us plainly “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” [Heb 13:5b] But God does even more than this; we see that God also hears us in our unbelief.
In the Psalms in another place David writes, “Blessed be The LORD: for He hath shewed me His marvelous kindness in a strong city. For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.” [Psa 31:21-22] See that here David hastily and wrongly assumed that God had left him, that he was cut off from before God’s eyes. But so was not the truth, for God says to Zion and all those who belong to Him, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” [Isa 49:16] And here again we see that even though there was unbelief, God still “heardest the voice of [David’s] supplications.”
Unfortunately, we know this type of unbelief all too often, much like the Israelites, and much like the man who cried out to Jesus, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” [Mk 9:24b] But even though this is true, we can exult alongside Asaph, “my flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” [Psa 73:26] Thanks be to God that we are not our own strength, but it is God who is our strength and upon whom our life stands and holds together because it is through Jesus that “all things hold together.” [Col 1:17b]
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