Psalm 106:1-48
106:1 Live a life of gratitude for the goodness of God; for we have His mercy to buoy is throughout our lives.
106:2-3 No force is comparable to our God. We do not even have power to enough to adequately praise Him. Yet blessed are we who do praise Him and learn righteousness from Him. Our commitment to justice tethers us steadfastly to our life source: God.
106:4-5 The Psalmist prays to be remembered by God with favor, to be visited by Him with His salvation. We pray to be in His thoughts for His plans are good. We pray to be in His presence, for He is strong and merciful and healing.
God loves when we pray to Him, and especially when we pray to Him on others' behalf. The Psalmist wants not only to be a part of the family, the Kingdom, but to help uphold it. To rejoice within it. To inherit the glory that a commitment to righteousness brings.
106:6-7 Humanity has been imperfect, and that is an understatement. From the beginning, humans have sinned, committed iniquity and made wicked decisions. Even in scripture we see that God was taken for gratitude, ignored and rejected. They forgot Him; ingratitude caused them to stray from righteousness.
106:8-12 Although we rebel and stray, God remains. And He remains committed to us. He still saves for God has a righteous purpose. He exhibits Himself as the creator He is. The ultimate. He shows us that He is not bound or limited by what we are bound and limited by. His mercy is limitless. His power is limitless.
In scripture God redesigned the world; He made the impossible possible. Just long enough to make the statement He intended to make, to declare Himself as the ultimate authority. He led and rescued and redeemed. He fought on behalf of His people. He showed them Who He was in order that they would know Him and choose His way. And for a time, they did. They praised.
106:13-15 But temptation and selfish, unchecked desire led them astray. Their commitment to righteousness wavered as instead they committed themselves to be slaves to greed and anger and lust. They frustrated God because He had given them everything, but many still succumbed to the wicked way. They allowed their greed and anger and lust to make decisions that contradicted God's law. They forgot that His way is peace and abundance.
106:16-18 Malicious envy and other wickedness was removed by God. He has evidenced that He will not allowed wickedness to exist. He burns it up into nothing.
106:19-23 They worshiped idols. So does humanity do now, as well. They worshiped images, we place value in images as well. In position. In wealth. In celebrity. And as we worship idols, we forget our God. We commit ourselves to different things, none that actually feed our soul or teach us righteousness. Our faith dwindles into nothing as we descend into desperation and chaos for those things we have become slave to: wealth, power, position, lust.
Moses interceded for his people when they sinned with idols and God's mercy kept them alive. God's mercy is entirely responsible for humanity's continued existence. Humans do so much harm but God continues to see our potential, He continues to put in the effort to make us better people.
106:24 They took their blessings for granted. They did not trust in God's word. The Bible is our guide, given to us by God, and in order to be blessed by it, we must trust in it.
106:25-27 We must not be like so many before us who rejected and complained. God is working to grow us into wiser, stronger, kinder people. It's a long and intricate process. We will experience growth pains along the way. But to trust in Him is to know it will be worth it. Another other way through life is cheap and regressive. But when we go against the will and word of God, we will be overthrown and scattered. Left in the wilderness we chose to wander into. Once there, we regress further into chaos or we use our experience there to climb out. Learning from our mistakes.
106:28-31 Humanity committed themselves to false gods and made sacrifices to dead things. But the true God is the God of life and such behavior makes Him angry. Wicked deeds frustrated Him so. But as humanity has sinned, so have many been righteous. And God's joy in righteous, compassionate acts is eternal. Through righteous, compassionate children, God has changed the world.
106:32-33 We have frustrated God. We have angered Him. We have disappointed Him. And the wicked and stubborn have frustrated and harmed agents of God's people. Even Moses lost his patience with humanity.
106:34-39 The tribes of Israel turned to human sacrifice. They served idols. They became enslaved to sin. God wants us to understand that if we do not commit ourselves to righteousness in every thing that we do, unrighteousness will ensnare us.
106:40-43 And God becomes angry when we allowed ourselves to be ensnared because there is no need for it. God has told us to resist evil and it will flee from us, James 4:7. God has provided a protected path, we need only to remain on it.
106:44-46 Many times God saved His people; if we should fall or walk off of the path, all hope is not lost. We are always welcome Home, but righteousness is a requirement. We must reject all other ways of life. There is only one way and it is God's.
God hears our cries with pity and answers with compassion. He doles out mercy and remembers His covenant.
106:47 The Psalmist prays to be saved in order to give thanks and to praise. The deeper we grow in our relationship with God, the more our desire hones in on one thing: to love Him well. To praise Him always.
106:48
"Blessed be the Lord God of IsraelFrom everlasting to everlasting!And let all the people say, 'Amen!'Praise the Lord!"
