Psalm 48

1 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.
2 Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.
3 God is known in her palaces for a refuge.
4 For, lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together.
5 They saw it, and so they marvelled; they were troubled, and hasted away.
6 Fear took hold upon them there, and pain, as of a woman in travail.
7 Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.
8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. Selah.
9 We have thought of thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of thy temple.
10 According to thy name, O God, so is thy praise unto the ends of the earth: thy right hand is full of righteousness.
11 Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.
12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof.
13 Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following.
14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.

The infinity symbol has become a popular trend in today’s society. It is everywhere; the word infinity is very familiar to us. In fact, we all probably know the saying, “To infinity and beyond!” We have heard it, but have we ever stopped to think about that statement? Infinity is our English word that describes something without any limit. It is something without an end; it is endless; hence its symbol has no end. So why add the beyond?

As a kid, my brothers and I would have a contest, as I like to call it, although I am sure my mom would call it something else. The object of this contest was to see who could get to the highest number. It would usually start off like not uh, yes huh, not uh times ten, yes huh times twenty, and then lead on from there to just saying numbers. But we knew that whoever got to infinity first would win; until one day one of my brothers introduced a new twist, infinity and beyond. This basically said yes, I know that infinity has no limit, but if it does I go beyond that.

Forever is much like infinity. It has no end. I have come into a particular habit of asking people if I could be friends with them for a long time. From this question, I get a plethora of different answers, but my favorite answer that I ever gotten was this, “I love you Jocy. We will be friends forever.” She wrote it on the back of a picture of herself and gave it to me. I cannot help but smile every time I see the word forever in that sentence. Why? Because it means there will be no end to our friendship.

As I read through Psalm 48, I cannot help but stand in awe of God. This psalm gives just a small glimpse at the glory and majesty of God. But then when I get verse 14, I am just overwhelmed. This great awesome God in the previous 13 verses is my God, but not only that, He is my God forever; but if forever is not good enough, He is my God forever and ever; but wait there is more, He is my Guide even unto death. How awesome is that! I love how Matthew Henry worded it in his commentary:

If God be our God, he is ours for ever, not only through all the ages of time, but to eternity; for it is the everlasting blessedness of glorified saints that God himself will be with them and will be their God, Rev. 21:3. 2. If he be our God, he will be our guide, our faithful constant guide, to show us our way and to lead us in it; he will be so, even unto death, which will be the period of our way, and will bring us to our rest. He will lead and keep us even to the last. He will be our guide above death (so some); he will so guide us as to set us above the reach of death, so that it shall not be able to do us any real hurt. He will be our guide beyond death (so others); he will conduct us safely to a happiness on the other side death, to a life in which there shall be no more death. If we take the Lord for our God, he will conduct and convey us safely to death, through death, and beyond death— down to death and up again to glory.

If you do not walk away smiling from the fact that God is our God forever and ever, I do not know what will make you smile, because that is unbelievably awesome! God is forever and ever mine, and I am forever and ever His.

I was on the road of life and everything was grand.

Everything in life was going just as planned.

Just when it seemed nothing could go wrong I saw a sign ahead
“Road closed. Must take a detour,” the sign read.

“I will take this detour if I must,”
I said with a voice full of disgust.

The road was rough and there was no beauty to behold.
My heart soon became weary and began to grow cold.

“Why me?” I asked God with a voice of distain;
I demanded that He to me explain.

“Why did You do this to me when my life was perfect?
Now my life is ruined and nothing but wrecked!”

I pointed my finger at God and demanded “Why me?”
He simply replied “I gave Myself for thee.”

The tears welled up in my eyes as I cried;
I was so, stupid, ignorant, and full of pride.

God gave me all I needed in one simple act;
But in all my pride, from God I did move back.

That detour at first so troublesome,
A beautiful blessing, it had become.

It reminded me that God is always there,
And my burden, He will help bear.

That road that was once had no beauty to behold,
Soon began to look as if it were a street of gold.

God can make the ugliest of things beautiful
And make the saddest situations joyful.

I thank God for that unplanned detour,
For it made my trust in Him more sure.

If something does not go as you have planed,
Remember a detour with God can be grand.

Sometimes I read things and they literally “blow my mind!” I reread and reread them, and each time, I am just baffled by what I am reading. I know that you are probably thinking, “Okay Jocelyn, that is not too hard to do with a mind like yours.” Ha. That is very true, but I wish to share a story that shows us just a little bit of God’s amazing love for us. It is the story of Hosea, and it seriously “blows my mind.”

Hosea 1:2
“The beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.”

Hosea 3:1,2
“1 Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:”

The first thing that “pops” out at me in this book of Scripture is the sin. Adultery is the picture that God often uses for our sins against Him. In this passage, The Lord commands Hosea to marry someone who he knew would sin against him, because God wanted to show the children of Israel a picture of their sin against God. Today our sin has no different affect. Our desire for worldly things has made us as the children of Israel. Our worldliness has made us adulterers against our God.

James 4:4 “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

1 John 2:15 “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

1 Corinthians 10:21 “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.”

2 Corinthians 6:16-18
“16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

The next thing i see in this passage is the sinner, Gomer. This is almost always us. We daily sin against God. In some time of our life, we have sinned and hurt God with our sin.

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”

Ecclesiastes 7:20 “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”

Job15:14 “What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?”

Psalm 14:3 “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”

1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

The last thing I see in this passage of Scripture is an amazing forgiveness and an even greater love. Have you ever had someone hurt you? Has someone ever talked badly about you or do something hurtful to you? How do you react when someone hurts you? Sometimes we are put in Hosea’s place where we encounter one who hurts us. G. Cambell Morgan wrote of this story,

Out of his own heart agony Hosea learned the nature of the sin of his people. They were playing the harlot, spending God’s gifts in lewd traffic with other lovers. Out of agony he has learned how God suffers over the sin of His people, because of His undying love. Out of God’s love Hosea’s new care for Gomer was born, and in the method God ordained for him with her, he discovered God’s method with Israel. Out of all this process of pain, there came full confidence in the ultimate victory of love.”

Every time someone hurts us, we get a little taste of what God feels every time we sin. Sometimes God brings Gomers into our lives so that we may show His amazing undying love and forgiveness to them. I like what Amy Carmichael wrote in her book, IF, “Or it is the dear human love about us that bathes us as in summer seas and rest us through and through. Can we ever cease to wonder at the love of our companions? And then suddenly we recognize our Lord I them. It is His love that they lavish upon us.” What an amazing privilege we have to share God’s love with others.

Proverbs 10:12 “Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.”

Proverbs 17:9 “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter spearateth very friends.”

1 Peter 4:8 “ And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.”

1 Corinthians 13: 7 “[Charity] Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

If the Lord Jesus Christ loved us so much that He willingly died for us to pay for our sins knowing that we would continually hurt Him, why do we not forgive others?

What if He brings people into our lives that will hurt us so that through the hurt we can show God’s love and forgiveness to them?

What if He brings these people into our lives so that He will be glorified through how we love and forgive them?

If I say, “Yes, I forgive, but I cannot forget,”
as though the God,
who twice a day washes all the sands
on all the shores of all the world,
could not wash such memories from my mind,
then I know nothing of Calvary love.
-Amy Carmichael