Post 3: Psalm 63:3

"Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you." 

Psalm 63:3

"Because your steadfast love"

David knew that God loved him. He had experienced God’s love: as a shepherd boy being shepherded by God, while fighting the giant Goliath, and while serving God as the king of God’s people. David, just like any of us, had times when he felt far away from God and did not feel God’s love. Even then, he trusted that God loved him. David wrote in Psalm 13:1,5 “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? . . . But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”

Steadfast love is a translation of the Hebrew word chesed. It is also sometimes translated as lovingkindness, unfailing love, faithful love, or mercy. It means that God’s love is constant; he loves us when we don’t deserve it and even when we don’t feel like he loves us. God’s steadfast love is best understood when we realize that God loves, forgives, and blesses people that do not deserve it. In the New Testament, God’s steadfast love is most clearly seen through Jesus. Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus dying for us, undeserving sinners, is the definition of grace and mercy. Grace is God’s free gift of blessings that we don’t deserve. Mercy is God not giving the punishment and wrath that we do deserve. We experience God’s steadfast love when we seek him through confessing sin and turning to him. David prayed, after his devastating sins of committing sexual abuse, adultery, murder, and pride, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions” (Psalm 51:1). He also wrote in Psalm 86:5-6, “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace.” Have you experienced God’s love through repenting of your sins and asking for his forgiveness? Only Jesus can blot out, or erase, your sins.

"is better than life"

David believed that God’s “steadfast love is better than life.” This psalm begins with a heading: “A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.” In verse 9 he mentions that there are “those who seek to destroy my life.” In verse 11 he shows that he is writing this psalm while he is the king. But he is in the wilderness and seems to be running from someone trying to kill him. In 2 Samuel 15 we read about David running away into the wilderness because his son Absalom rebelled and wanted to take the kingdom for himself. David’s own son wanted him dead. Yet, in the middle of this horrorific episode in David’s life, he was still focused on the love of God. He believed that God’s love makes the misery of life bearable. He believed that God’s love makes the temporary joys of life undesirable.

The fact that God’s love is better than life means that if God gave us nothing but heartache and death in this life, we would still be blessed and have joy knowing that God’s love endures forever. There is more to life than our temporary lives. God is eternal; his love is eternal; our souls are eternal. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26). Most people today do not want to “deny self” and “take up our crosses.” We do not want to die to self and live for Jesus. We think our lives our better than God’s love. Most people want to “save our own lives,” try to live our best lives now. We want to “gain the whole world.” We want to be rich and successful and live life based on our own rules. But Jesus says we must “follow him.” We have to “lose our life” to find it in him, the source of life.

Over the years there have been countless martyrs--someone who dies for Jesus at the hands of someone who hates Jesus. They would be able to echo king David in saying “the steadfast love of God is better than life.” The apostle Paul faced imprisonment, suffering, and the threat of martyrdom. He said, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). In other words, Paul cared more about sharing the grace of God than he cared about his own life. He also knew that God’s love is better than life.

"my lips will praise you."
Because David knew the greatness of God’s love and how undeserving he was of it, his response is to praise God. Our response to God’s goodness and his blessings should always be worship. We have a hard time worshipping God when we are more focused on ourselves and our lives and trying to “gain the whole world.” Often people have any easier time thanking and praising God when life is going well. But David illustrates for us that God should be praised even when life is not going well. Don’t forget that he had his own son and other “people trying to destroy his life” (Ps. 63:9). Another time that someone wanted to kill David he prayed, “O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love” (Psalm 59:17).

If we know Jesus as our Savior, we know that God loves us. We can have joy and praise God even during tough times knowing that Jesus paid the ultimate price for our sins. We are not promised a good life on earth, but we know that his love is better than anything else we will experience in this life anyway. “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).