Daily Devotion – March 7, 2022 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Psalm 99
99:1 The LORD is king; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake!
99:2 The LORD is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.
99:3 Let them praise your great and awesome name. Holy is he!
99:4 Mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.
99:5 Extol the LORD our God; worship at his footstool. Holy is he!
99:6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel also was among those who called on his name. They cried to the LORD, and he answered them.
99:7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept his decrees, and the statutes that he gave them.
99:8 O LORD our God, you answered them; you were a forgiving God to them, but an avenger of their wrongdoings.
99:9 Extol the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy.
One of the most striking things about this psalm is that it describes a God of all power. People tremble before God, the earth quakes, God is bigger than everything, and God is holy.
Ancient peoples worshiped many gods and called upon them for favors. Many of these gods were best at either killing or fertility. People prayed for help smiting their enemies or for good crops or for many children.
But this God of the Israelites, this God was just one god who ruled over all things: justice, prosperity, forgiveness, vengeance, and all of creation. To other cultures, Israel must have seemed pretty impoverished – only one god? But that God was indeed ruler over all things. And not only that, that God was Holy.
What does such a psalm mean for us today?
Perhaps it just calls on us to sit for a few minutes and contemplate the bigness, the broadness, the all-ness of the God we claim to worship.
That this big and broad God cares for us little human specks! That this Creator of the amazing universe sent part of himself, the man Jesus, to walk around with us, during human history as a real person, and show us that this larger-than-anything God has compassion and delight in us and wants us to show compassion and delight in one another.
And that same God has given us the Holy Spirit to live with us and walk with us today and whisper in our ears and tap us on the shoulder so that we don’t miss anything God is calling us to do.
Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for caring about us, small as we are. Thank you for the gifts of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to keep us connected to you. Help us to sit and contemplate your bigness and your love. Amen.
