#DailyDevotion Think About Your Mortality Some To Gain Wisdom
Psalm 90 7Yes, Your anger consumes us; Your fury terrifies us. 8You have set our sins before You, our hidden sins before the light of Your face.
Moses on a number of occasions in the wilderness could have written these words. There was the gold calves incident. There were the constant grumblings against the LORD. There were revolts against Moses. People hid corban (things that would have been destroyed because God ordered it, usually booty from war). Of course there were sins people tried to hide and sins we don’t even know we have committed. All these things had God’s anger consume the Israelites and His fury terrified them.
Hopefully, when we sin, we can know God’s anger and fury against our sins so we can confess them and look to Him for mercy through Jesus Christ, our LORD. Many in the world reject God, the LORD, the God of the Israelites because they don’t want to face His wrath and fury. Because they are terrified by the aspect of God they see revealed in nature and their hearts they reject Him thinking that somehow in doing this, they will escape it, well at least during this lifetime. They do not know the name of the LORD revealed in Ex. 34:6 and made incarnate in our LORD Jesus Christ, “The LORD, the LORD, God, merciful and gracious, slow to get angry, rich in love and faithfulness, 7continuing to show mercy to thousands, forgiving wrong, rebellion, and sin, without treating it as innocent, but disciplining children and children’s children to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their fathers.” When we believe in the name of the LORD, we move from fear and terror to faith and love.
9When You pour out Your anger, all our days vanish; we finish our years like a sigh. 10We live as long as 70 years, and if we’re strong enough get to be 80. Yet what we are proud of is but toil and trouble; it’s gone so quickly and we fly away. 11Who knows how fierce Your anger is? Your fury is as great as the fear due You. 12Teach us to count our days that we learn to be wise. 13How long until You return, O LORD? Have pity on Your servants.
Our mortality is lamented here. We would be wise to contemplate it some. We should not put off repenting our sins and turning to God now, today. Life is full of troubles from the moment we are born to the time we die. We should always see our misfortunes as the LORD calling us to repentance and faith. It is His great love for us that He calls us to repent of our sins. We should spend our time trying to please God through faith in Jesus Christ. We await His return so we may be ultimately purified of all sin and enter into His glory.
14In the morning satisfy us with Your mercy; then we’ll shout happily and be glad as long as we live. 15Make us glad as many days as You made us suffer, as many years as we’ve seen misery. 16May Your servants see what you can do, and may Your glory be on our children. 17May the kindness of the Lord our God be upon us; give us success in what we’re doing; yes, give us success in what we’re doing.
They would have had the morning sacrifice which indicated God accepted it and His mercy was upon them. We get up making the sign of the cross and calling upon the name placed upon us in baptism to know we belong to God. We ask these blessings mentioned here to be upon us even as Moses prayed them upon the Israelites. We pray for good days where we are not being disciplined so we may enjoy the goodness of God in our lives. We pray for His kindness to be upon us so we can bear with the troubles of the day. We pray for success in what we are doing, namely, turning from our sins and turning to our LORD Jesus Christ, living out His life in our lives so He may receive the glory and have His glory rest upon us and our children.
Heavenly Father, give us a spirit of wisdom that we may rightfully understand our mortality and live our days in holy fear, love and trust in You above all things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.