Has your heart become hard and impenetrable? Have you allowed it to grow natural fruit that might have grown before you trusted the Lord? Has your life become about you, rather than being about the Saviour? Are you willing to allow the word of God to break up your fallow ground?
This psalm closes as it begins with the declaration: “O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!” This statement sets the theme for the entire psalm. God establishes His excellence by His working with and blessings to mankind. Much of this psalm looks back to creation and to man’s original place there.
God never promised to remove all trials or to give us heaven on earth. However, He has promised that the man who separates himself from the world and gives himself over to the Lord will be blessed.
When God judges His people, He never dispenses punishment as an end in itself but as a means to an end. Hebrews 12:5-13 expounds this truth as clearly as any passage in scripture. If you are under chastisement, take to heart these steps of obedience as suggested by this passage.
