Psalm 41

God has in His hands complete power over life and death. He is the One who also has determined everything concerning both the present and the future. He is now working out all His plans. His decrees touch very significantly upon all of our lives. It is this sovereign and powerful God who tells us to consider the poor, and who promises that He will bless us if we do so.

He has displayed His own care for those in need through the cross. We acknowledge before Him that we are the poor in spirit. He has the perfect righteousness that is heaven's only currency. Through Adam's sin and our own we have racked up an awful debt that is completely beyond our ability to repay. The life and death of Jesus for us is the complete remedy for our spiritual poverty. Because a great ransom has been paid, we now have been given permanent title to the kingdom of heaven.

The Lord gives us great glimpses of Paradise in His Word. In that place of protection God keeps us alive, and we are blessed. We have no trouble from enemies there, and we are kept from sickness and distress.

If we taste anything close to that now in some measure of present prosperity, it is only a hint of a much greater life of divine favor that is coming. In this world, it is more the norm that the Lord's faithful servants will encounter significant tribulation. When we consider Old Testament heroes like Job or Jeremiah, we know that they faced serious difficulties. The Apostle Paul's biggest trials only began after he reached the clarity of Christian commitment. Most importantly, Jesus, who is our righteousness, faced a world of suffering and pain for us.

Our experiences of deep loss and trouble become a thing of the past when we go to the Lord's glorious kingdom. On this earth we have the trouble of our own sin added to the challenges that we face from powerful adversaries. Think of the horror of betrayal that Christ faced for us. Not only were the chief priests and the Jews shouting for his death on the cross, one of His own close companions had delivered Him into the hands of His foes for thirty pieces of silver.

People were not mourning their own sin at the cross, realizing that it took what their eyes were seeing to work their redemption. They were shouting, “Crucify Him!” They were not encouraging themselves with His promise that on the third day He would rise again. They were cheering for His death and expecting Him to stay dead. Yet now He reigns from heaven, and He is coming again to judge the living and the dead.

God would not hand His holy Son forever over to eternal death. That formidable enemy would not be able to shout in triumph over Jesus. This was the final proof of the Lord's delight in our Redeemer, and this has become for us the guarantee of our own eternal safety and blessedness.

Our Lord's speech and conduct were fully in accord with the most exacting standards of God's holy integrity. This cannot be said of those who worship Him. Not even close. In terms of perfect integrity, our only source is Jesus. But this is what He has given to those who trust in Him, the credit of His manner of life. All our murderous and adulterous thinking, our covetous dissatisfaction with the life that God has given us, all our addictions to deadly practices that promise pleasure, and our habit of rejecting the way of God's Holy Spirit, all this sin He atoned for through His death. And all His godliness, holiness, self-control, and love He has granted to us as if we ourselves had followed that way of life perfectly. This is what we have in Christ.

The enemies of Jesus experienced a momentary triumph over the Son of God. Because of that suffering, now our adversaries will not be able to exalt over us forever. The Father turned His face away from His holy Son for a short time. But now we can live securely in the presence of God.

Jesus did not forfeit heaven permanently. He won heaven for us in such a way that we would be there with Him forever. We are going there when we die, and then heaven is coming here to renew the earth when Jesus returns.

This glorious plan of God for our salvation was perfectly executed by the Son of God. The credit for every ounce of heavenly glory belongs to the Lord. We will join with all of His redeemed people to bless His Name from everlasting to everlasting.

With this awareness that our time of struggle here is brief, and with the confidence that Christ is King, and that He has perfectly secured our own eternal blessedness and happiness, we return again to the encouragement of the Lord that we should consider the poor. Christ saw us in our extreme spiritual poverty. He considered us, and He considered Himself, knowing that He was the only One who could work out the plan of redemption. He considered what His enemies would do to Him. He considered how a friend who shared His bread would betray Him. He considered the cross and the grave. Then He considered the resurrection and the glories of heaven.

With a full awareness of all that would take place even before the world began, He chose mercy. He calls us to count the cost, and then to care for the weak. This is His good plan for us, and it too shall be accomplished, for He has prepared good works in advance for us, that we should walk in them.