“…the excellencies of Him…”

 

Last Sunday I preached Psalm 1. Verse 2 of that psalm teaches that the blessed man and woman find that their delight is in the law of the Lord and that they meditate on God’s law day and night. This meditation is an active process. It is a taking in of God’s teaching in the Bible and soaking in it, absorbing it, allowing it to permeate every cell of your being.

Because I just preached it that idea of meditating on God’s word has been a frequent inhabitant of my thought life over the past week. I have been both thinking about the idea of meditating on God’s word, and I have been meditating on God’s word, reading something in my morning devotional time and then coming back to a phrase or a verse or an idea several times during the day or in wakeful times at night. I want to share one of those mediations with you in this post.

Robin and I are presently reading through 1 Peter in our evening prayer time together. We were reading 1 Peter 2:6-12, where in verse 9 Peter writes:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

There is a whole lot of really powerful theology packed into that verse but the thing that jumped out to me on this occasion were those four simple words, “the excellencies of Him,” with Him being a reference to Jesus. 

There is an idea floating around in my mind that I believe came from John Piper, where he said that a central task of the preacher was to magnify the person and work of Jesus through the proclamation of the word. Piper said it was like holding Jesus up to the light like a precious gem, which radiated beauty at every point you looked at it. “…the excellencies of Him…”

And so I am meditating on the excellencies of my Savior and Lord, which include, in no particular order, His mercy, kindness, faithfulness, holiness, love, righteousness, justice, power, wisdom, eternity, omnipresence, goodness, hatred of sin, patience, empathy and compassion. Surely there are more excellencies within Him. And being excellencies they are all both perfect and for good.

Those last two thoughts I tacked on, that everything within Jesus is both perfect and good, are speed bumps for some people coming to see who He truly is, what He has done, and what His work makes possible for all who come to Him in faith. He could not possibly be anyone’s Savior and Lord if He were not perfect and always working for good, from God’s point-of-view. His excellencies are perfect and they are always used in just the right way.

Consider His excellencies and then, as appropriate, thank Him, or, in faith turn to Him and trust in Him. Amen

 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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