#DailyDevotion Jesus Is Where Truth & Kindness, Righteousness & Peace Kiss and Meet
Psalm 85 8I want to listen to what God the LORD says, because He promised His people and His godly ones that they will be happy. But they mustn’t go back to foolishness. 9Surely He is near those who fear Him to save them, that His glory may rest on our country. 10Kindness and truth have met, righteousness and peace have kissed.
It is the result of hearing the good news and believing it that we would want to listen to what God the LORD says. The good news here is the LORD promised His people and godly ones that they will be happy. Happy is probably not the best translation here. Shalom is the word being translated. It is often translated as peace. Shalom here would include being happy as a result because God’s shalom brings all good things. The LORD speaking shalom to His people creates faith in them.
But that peace would be removed from us if we return to our foolishness. Returning to our foolishness would be trusting in people, places and things to provide us every good, to give us shalom. Jesus is our peace. (Eph. 2:14) It is Jesus who speaks peace to us. It is Jesus who makes peace between us and God the Father by His sacrificial death. Shalom is all good things. We should only look to Jesus who is our Shalom to provide us all good things.
The LORD Jesus is near those who fear, i.e. trust, love and honor Him. He is Immanuel-God with us! He makes His home in our hearts, making our bodies His temple. He is near us, to save (Yashua, Jesus!) us. Jesus’ glory shall indeed rest in the land He is giving us, the New Heavens and New Earth. His glory is the message of the cross, that in the cross He has reconciled everything and everyone to God the Father. In His cross, He has removed our transgressions from us.
In the person of Jesus, chesed (steadfast love, kindness, mercy) and truth meet. The truth is we are sinners and God is holy. These two things meet in Jesus as Jesus takes our sins upon Himself and expresses God’s steadfast love toward us in sacrificing His only-begotten Son for us. In Jesus, righteousness and peace kiss. The righteousness of God cannot abide by the uncleanness of our sins. Yet Jesus takes our uncleanness upon Himself even as the scapegoat did under the Law of Moses. In this action, He gives us His righteousness so we may know the peace of God. Righteousness and peace kiss each other on the cross providing us both the righteousness and the peace of God.
11Truth sprouts from the ground, and righteousness looks down from heaven. 12The LORD will also give us what is good, and our land will produce its crop. 13Righteousness will go ahead of Him and make His footsteps a way to walk in.
When God provides us His promises in Christ Jesus, truth springs forth everywhere we go. Jesus, our righteousness, looks down from heaven as the sun, giving us life. The LORD Jesus now gives us what is good for our salvation and our perseverance in the faith, which sometimes looks like evil because it is sometimes the LORD’s discipline. (Heb. 12) But this discipline, the book of Hebrews says, produces the fruit of righteousness in us. As we put our trust in the LORD the Holy Spirit produces in us every good fruit.
Jesus’ righteousness goes ahead of Him and makes His footsteps a way to walk in. He leads us into the heavenly realms to God’s right hand where He dwells. His path is the cross. He calls us to pick up our cross and follow Him. That cross is everlasting life and the peace of God for us.
Heavenly Father, continue to speak Your promises to our hearts that we may trust only in Your for peace and receive Your righteousness through Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.