Daily Devotion – July 6, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

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Daily Devotion – July 6, 2021 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

Psalm 24
24:1 The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it;
24:2 for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.
24:3 Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?
24:4 Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.
24:5 They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of their salvation.
24:6 Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah
24:7 Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.
24:8 Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle.
24:9 Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.
24:10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah

This is a triumphant psalm. All of it, right through to the end.
But I am just going to take up the first verse.
“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it.”
I wonder how many people believe this claim. If you interviewed your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers, I wonder if they would agree that everything and everybody belong to the Lord. I think perhaps they believe more in a God who operates from a distance, as the popular song of 20 years ago said. God is out there, watching from a distance. Maybe God cares, but it’s from far, far away.
This was the view of the Deists who were a popular faction at the time of the founding of America. In fact, many of our prominent founders were Deists. God created everything, wound it up like a clock, and left it to run on its own.
The God of the Old and New Testaments is far from that kind of God. The Bible’s God cares so deeply about how it’s going with the earth and the humans who live there that God gets involved in life, to walk with us, to teach us, to care for us, and even to die for us. If that’s the kind of God we have, then it doesn’t matter whether we believe it or not, God is in fact that way.
The psalmist believes in that kind of God – one who created, owns, and sustains the earth and all its inhabitants. What kind of difference would it make in life if all of us believed it too? Every day? In every earthly interaction we have with nature and with one another? All of this belongs to God. All of us belong to God.

Gracious God, thank you for loving us. Thank you for being here now with us. Give us the sensitivity, the kindness, and the compassion to live every day as if we and everything we have belonged to you, for it is true. Everything belongs to you. Amen.