“Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. For our heart will rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name. Let Your lovingkindness, O LORD, be on us, just as we hope in You.” Psalm 33:20-22
Rather than placing our hope and confidence in the plans of men and of nations, believers place their hope and trust in the LORD, who created the heavens and the earth with His almighty Word and still preserves them (cf. Psalm 33:6-9).
The Levites professed this in Nehemiah 9:5-6 when they said: “Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever! Let them bless Your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the Lord. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and You preserve them all. And the host of heaven worships You.”
And, it is as the psalmist writes in Psalm 33:10-11; 16-19: “The Lord frustrates the counsel of the nations; He restrains the purposes of the people. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the purposes of His heart to all generations. … No king is saved by a great army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; it will not deliver by its great strength. The eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His lovingkindness, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.”
Therefore, we believers wait on the LORD and trust in Him to watch over us and keep us. We trust in Him to care for our every need. We rejoice in Him and His merciful goodness toward us.
And, above all, we pray with the psalmist (Psalm 33:22): “Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be on us, just as we hope in You.”
We know that we are sinful and unclean — that we deserve none of the blessings the LORD God showers upon us — and so we pray that God’s lovingkindness, His mercy, would be upon us. We pray that instead of dealing with us according to our sins and shortcomings, He would deal with us in grace, forgiving our sins and accepting us as His dear children.
And how can God do that? For the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ! Jesus lived a perfect and holy life in our stead in His thoughts, desires, words and deeds, and He went to the cross and suffered the just punishment for our sins, making full atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world, that God might deal with us in mercy and forgive our sins when we look to Jesus and His cross in faith.
“Jesus Christ the Righteous One … is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1,2).
For Jesus’ sake, God’s lovingkindness and mercy are upon all who place their hope in Him and His sacrifice for the sins of the world. And, because of Jesus, our hope is not in vain!
“Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be on us, just as we hope in You.” Amen.
[Scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.]