Psalm 36

The ultimate problem of the human condition is the wall of death and the despair that it brings to the living. This mortal wound cannot be repaired with any superficial bandage. It is felt every day in the experience of the dead soul. We were once dead in our transgressions and sins in the very depths of our being. In that condition we imagined ourselves to be better than we were. We loved sin in our hearts, and we had no fear of God.

Only the Lord can solve these problems. People need to be made alive by His grace. Yet before God gives us new life we have no sense of our great spiritual need. We complement ourselves on our excellent character and forget that our unwillingness to love and acknowledge our Creator is sin. We dismiss the Lord and imagine away our debt to Him. We suspect that God is too busy to care about us, and that He cannot find out our sin.

In this depraved state we are dangerous both to ourselves and others. Unbalanced thinking, hatred, scheming, and lies cannot lead to anything good. Waking or sleeping, our hearts are not alive with the glory of God. How much damage will we do? Can we be stopped? What attribute of God will have the power to bring life to the dead?

The steadfast love of the Lord extends to the heavens, and his faithfulness to the clouds. The love of God brings life forever. The Father loves you, the Son loves you, and the Holy Spirit loves you.

Jesus comes to the work of perfect love with the towering righteousness of heaven. In our wickedness we deserved the deep justice of God. It was necessary for Christ to suffer the curse that had our name on it. This was the only way that the steadfast love of God could be delivered safely to us as a gift. Through the righteousness of our Redeemer and through His suffering in our place, the salvation of God has come.

Can you acknowledge the seriousness of your deadness and wickedness that required the death of the Son of God? Will you admire the perfection of the holiness of Christ, our Substitute? The proud man will not hear of these things. But the man who has embraced the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lord for him will finally confess the truth of what his sin deserves and will embrace the glory of the righteous power of Jesus of Nazareth, displayed supremely in His resurrection from the dead. You must believe these great facts of faith in your heart and confess them before the church with your lips if you would to take refuge forever in the shadow of the Lord's wings.

This confession of necessary truth is not the totality of the life that God has for us. Together with all who call upon the Name of the Lord, we are to feast on the abundance of God's house, and drink from the river of His delights. One of the biggest lies of fictional autonomy is imagining that we have too much pleasure to give up to risk coming to Christ. That it is an insult to the God who made man in His own image. He has a glorious future for us with the best and highest delights we could ever enjoy.

When we were spiritually dead (why do we still act like this?) we searched diligently for that mix of choices that would be the fun life, the meaningful life, the good life, whatever words we might have chosen. But is there a better river anywhere for you to swim in than the river of life? What would you give to be able to walk up to that shore, to cup your hands, to sink them just below the surface and then to splash your face with the waters of heaven? What is the light above like, where Jesus, the Light of the world reigns? How will your eyesight be different when in His light, you see light?

There is so much beauty, order, goodness, and truth that Christ has for us in heaven. But we can taste these gifts even now. God has made us alive to heaven's joys already. When we hear the Word, we can rejoice in Christ. By faith we know that God is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. We gather together in worship and grow in living the heavenly life on earth by the grace that comes from above. We hear that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and we rejoice in the Lord.

The Christian life is all death and all resurrection. To the extent that we are willing to die daily in suffering love, we experience resurrection daily in heavenly joy.

If even once you taste of these good things, how can you turn away from this life? Yet some do taste, they see that the Lord is good, they enjoy a sense of the life to come, yet they never truly belong to the Lord. One day He says to them, “I never knew you.” See Matthew 7:21-23 and Hebrews 6:5 and consider the frightening fact of turning from God.

May this not be your story. Taste heaven, and stay with Jesus and His church forever. If you will, you will be of more earthly good in your life now as the Lord empowers you to be a representative of His steadfast love to the suffering.

Fading treasures fall short when death draws near. Any serious observer of the human condition has recognized the problem of our mortality. But God is able to give us a love that lasts, a love that is the only power that can bring resurrection life.

Because of what Jesus has done for us, God will surely continue His steadfast love to those who know Him. He calls us the upright of heart. This is what we are in Jesus. He will never take the righteousness of Christ away from us. He will watch over us, keep us, and make us useful in a world of trouble. One day He will bring us beyond the reach of our own sin and the hostility of other sinners. If you have experienced His mercies, there is no need for you to continue in a way of life that cannot deliver the pleasure that it promises. Better to die daily in the death of Jesus, and to walk forever in resurrection in the light of His Word.