Heart Meditations

Can you sing?

More than 2500 years ago an ancient Singer/Song Writer King wrote these words.

Psalm 96:11-13

¹¹ Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it;

¹² let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;

 ¹³ they will sing before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.

The word ‘judge’ has gained an almost negative connotation in everyday use.  People who ‘judge’ are seen as mean, they allow their opinions of a subject or a person to affect how they act towards or treat the person or subject.  People form judgements about who you are based on things a trivial as the amount of pigment your skin cells produce, the accent you speak with, how much you weigh, the car you drive, the sports team you follow, the places you go to.  Many of us have been burned by the judgements of others.  I remember a time when I felt judged unfairly by my friends because they did not like my girlfriend at the time.  People shunned us and treated us like we were stuck up.  It was a difficult experience even though in the grand scheme of things it was rather minor.

Despite our dislike of judgment, judgment is big business.  American Idol, The Apprentice, The Bachelor, the recent elections, democracy in general, all these things are based on judgment.  We like judgement, when it is about other people.  We just don’t like to be judged ourselves.  To be more precise we don’t like to be misjudged.  We don’t like it when people think and say negative things about us when they are not true.  If you have ever tried to clear your name you know what I mean.  However we have a deeper problem.  Sometimes the negative opinions about us are true.  We are jerks, we are selfish, or lazy, or annoying, or irresponsible, or down right mean.

How could David, the singer/song writer be happy about a God who was coming to judge the world?  How could that thought cause him to want to sing?  He was after all a bad father, too indulgent to his sons, we has an adulterer and a murderer.  He had killed more than 10,000 people in war which, even though he felt his causes were righteous, had to weigh on his soul.  How could he be happy about being judged?

David wrote in Psm 32:1-2

 ¹ Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

 ² Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

if this is true then it changes things.  If God doesn’t count our sins, our mistakes against us what ever His judgments are they can not be negative towards us. David could sing about judgment because the God who judges is the same God who does not count his sin against him.

The question is can you sing?