Psalm 52

Jesus said the greatest commandment of God is to love God with all that you have: your whole mind, your undivided heart, your entire body and your complete soul. Because that commandment seems well past our capacity to fulfill, there is a tendency not to take it seriously, to write it off as some of Jesus’ hyperbole. But God does take it seriously. God loves us unconditionally and completely, and God wants us to love Him completely. Psalm 52 describes the ‘mighty man’ living apart from God and God’s judgment aimed at showing up the man’s folly.

For the psalmist, life can be easily understood. You can suffer with your own delusions that you are at the center of your life and the purpose of life is pleasure and self-fulfillment; or you can dwell in the House of God. One of the great dramas of life is in the lives of people who try to have both. They want to be in control of their life and chart their own course, but they also want just enough religion to be seen as righteous. That is folly because you can’t sprinkle God across your life like salt and pepper. With God, you are either all the way in, or you are not in at all. God is not satisfied when you are not dwelling in His House and the “Hound of Heaven” (Francis Thompson) is unstoppable in His efforts to redeem you completely. You can stop running anytime you want to and start singing with the psalmist,

But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God.

I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.

I will praise you forever, O God,

for what you have done.

I will trust in your good name

in the presence of your faithful people.

Psalm 52: 8-9

Sē’lah

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What word or phrase in today’s reading of the Psalms

 attracts your attention?

Reflect on that word or phrase.

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Reading for June 23, 2012         Psalm 53