To Know God

Psalm 16

What can I say?  God is the best.  I mean I love vegan food, especially vegan food at a high end classy hipster place with good company and great music and fantastic weather while wearing a comfortable yet stylish outfit, but as good as all that feels for me (a mixed bag of good and bad reasons), nothing compares to knowing God.

Nothing in this world compares to knowing God.

Nothing.  And I've had or experienced a lot of good things, but all of those things become memories that are no longer alive.  Everything, but God, has an expiration date.  So although some things are good, they eventually die down, but God is both good and everlasting!  He doesn't just have eternity about Him, He has that goodness of joy and love and peace and passion about Him that makes knowing Him more valuable than all the other shiny things in this world combined!

God is the best. Here is why:

“Protect me, God,
for I take refuge in You."

(God protects me and when God Almighty is protecting me, there's absolutely no fear that is able to stay around or in me because who is strong enough to break past the protection of God Almighty?  If there was something or someone able to do that, then God would cease to be God.  I know God and He is One, there is no other gods beside the One.  I take refuge in Him, and it means I am protected by the strength and power of the One who cannot be over-powered.  I'm dangerously safe because whatever tries to mess with me will be messing with the wrong person.)

"I said to Yahweh, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides You.”

(I have nothing good besides my Good Father.  All the seemingly "good" things in this life are exposed as the expiration dates they are when I know and feel the eternal presence of God pulsating in my soul with every beat that pumps out life.  When I taste the love of God all other flavors in this world become bitter in comparison.  When I smell the breath of God all other scents lose their aroma.  When I see the beauty of God all other sights pale in color and radiance.  When I hear the voice of God all other words become dull and meaningless.  I have nothing good apart from having God and when I'm with God I am in possession of what is truly good.  When I come back to God from feeling hurt or disappointed in life, I am reminded of this because His love fills me up with that goodness that makes everything else fade.)

"As for the holy people who are in the land, they are the noble ones.  All my delight is in them."

(When I meet people of God I feel like I'm in the presence of greatness.  The people who walk before God have a royalty about them, they carry with them something that makes being with them like being in the presence of nobility.  I am in awe and have the highest respect for people who love and serve the true King.  Their speech is beautiful, their actions are powerful, and their faces glow with a satisfaction and contentment that speaks volumes about the One they represent.  They are most pleasant to be around.  They contagiously spread joy and hope.)

"The sorrows of those who take another god for themselves will multiply; I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood, and I will not speak their names with my lips."

(When false god's are worshipped or idols are put on the throne of one's heart, sometimes my own, it always leads to multiplied sorrows and never to joy.  When anything or anyone is put before God as the ruler of my free will then I end up with more trouble or more loss because no other gods exist, so trouble given to trouble just multiplies more trouble!  Why give my needs to something that will only cause me to have more needs?  No, these things are useless to turn to, so i will not turn to them, I won't even consider them as an option for healing or help because they have no power and in fact only increase my troubles!)

"Lord, You are my portion and my cup of blessing; You hold my future."

(My future is, to me, very unstable if I were to try and figure it all out myself.  My future would be so scary because of how little I know and how little control I have over external factors, but my future is not held by me.  God holds my future in His hands.  He is moving things, making things, causing things, stopping things, and holding everything in my life to work according to His good and perfect plan for me.  Likewise He is doing that for you since He holds the lives of His own in His Fatherly Creator-hands.  Everything He does is for us and nothing He does is against us.)

"The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance."

(Boundary lines.  Ahh the beauty of boundary lines only become apparent when one has crossed them and found only chaos and discontent outside of them.  Imagine eating a cake, but imagine you didn't distinguish the boundary line between where the cake ended and the cardboard piece under it began.  Taking a bite outside the boundary line of the cake would mean biting into a wooden board that would taste awful!  Or imagine hearing a symphony that was playing a piece by Mozart, but instead of staying within the boundary lines of the notes written down they suddenly began playing any other notes than the ones written, a cacophony of random noises that no longer made the beautiful melodies of Mozart's masterpiece.  The boundary lines of life have fallen in beautiful places for us!  Not just about cake or music but about life!  We have been given the beautiful boundary lines for the fullest most excitement packed, passion filled, adventurous and love-full life!  Our lives are given His boundary lines that distinguish between heaven and hell.  And oh how sweet it is to know the way to live and to know the Heaven we have been given!)

I will praise the Lord who counsels me — even at night my conscience instructs me."

(Wisdom is found in the secret place.  Where we wrestle to know His will and to lay down our own in humble submission because we know His ways are higher and His thoughts can comprehend much more than our own.  When we avail our hearts to be soft and malleable rather than hard and stubborn, we open up to wisdom.  We have a Counselor who is wise and who is ready and able to give us wisdom if we will be open to receiving it.)

"I keep the Lord in mind always. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my spirit rejoices; my body also rests securely."

(To keep the Lord in mind always is to have Him before one's eyes at all times as if we are making every decision staring at His face.  We make these decisions with Him, and when we do we rest in Him for the outcome.)

For You will not abandon me to Sheol;
You will not allow Your Faithful One to see decay.

(God had sent His one and only Son to give us the obedience and righteousness of His one and only Son.  We are clothed in the clothes of Christ so that we are in Him, and if in Him then God is now our one and only Father, and we His beloved children in Christ.  If we are in Christ then we are in the One who will never see decay!  We are in His life, and God will never let His one and only Son ever see decay.  We have our home in the safest place.  We live and move and have our existence in the Son of God who is only full of life forever, so that means we are also only existing in life forever.  The treatment of which God treats His one and only Son is given to us since we are in Him.  Everything Jesus inherits becomes what we inherit by being in Him.)

"You reveal the path of life to me;
in Your presence is abundant joy;
in Your right hand are eternal pleasures.”
Psalms 16:1-11

How good it is to know God.

Jmegrey