O LORD, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. 2 Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. 3 The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead. 4 So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. 5 I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. 6 I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah

While we must respect the justice of God, it is not a trait that gives us comfort. The justice of God requires that all wrong doing must be punished. The Psalmist reminds us that “no one living is righteous before you” as he speaks to God. This means that each of us deserves punishment because we have all done wrong. The apostle Paul tells us in the Roman letter that this justice coupled with God’s love is what brings his grace to us. Thus, by the death of Jesus in the place of our death God is made both just and the justifier of those who have faith in him. It is with this assurance that we can spread out our hands to God and know that he will hear our cry and answer our plea. We come before him with the confidence that our sin has been punished and that we are counted as righteous (without sin) before him.

Our response to this great love and this free gift of salvation should be that we long for him and to be like him. Our soul should thirst for God like the parched land thirsts for rain. Jesus told us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. In that same sermon he also said that we are to hunger and thirst after righteousness. We must be as one who is left on the hot desert sands, parched from thirst and famished from hunger as we seek to be righteous before God. While we seek it thus we realize that on our own we fail but by faith in Jesus we are counted as righteous. We don’t deserve it in any sense but then this is the very definition of grace; that which we don’t deserve but are given because of God’s love. This is why John writes: “This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” I John 4:10

O God, giver of life, please strengthen my faith in you. Help me to open my heart and allow your Spirit to fill me with your love, with kindness and compassion. Help me to seek to be like you above all else in my life. Fill my life with good deeds so that others will see you in me and glorify you. Empty my heart so that I never seek praise for myself but seek only to lead others to you by my life. Forgive me when I fail. In Jesus name I pray.

May God bless each of us as we seek to faithfully serve him.