"God's Goodness" -3

"He loveth righteousness and judgment: the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD." (Psalms 33:5) After you realize how much God actually loves you, it's hard not to imagine where you would be without His great mercy and patience; because I can tell you right now, I pretty much had no desire to listen to any other thing than that which I had designed for myself. You may or may not understand what I am talking about; but to be someone that was religious, yet not willing to accept religion in any sanctioned form, especially not one that was attached to an organization, I was pretty much on my own as far as the way I thought I believed. To those of you that lived it and have come to the Lord, praise God for His great mercy upon your life; because just the way I had spent living my life those last ten years before accepting Jesus, I was living as though I was dying any day; pushing the envelope as far as I could, and challenging all the limits. There were several instances that I can remember where I should have died, and probably a multitude of them where I could have died; but God's mercy was upon my life, and I believe that now more than ever before! To put in perspective the things I see that are being said within this verse, is not all that easy to do, because they pertain to God's goodness towards us; something that we only see the shadow of, and we only see in parts; those parts that are revealed in and to us, and in the way that we perceive what He has done in our lives. For example, the word "righteousness", a trace of the original meaning is found in the phrase, "What right have I any more?"; and it takes the form of a servant that realizes how blessed that he is to have such a Master that cares so much about his welfare, and loves him as if he was His son. That might not seem like such a big deal to someone that was raised in the church; but to a freak like me, it tells me how incredibly fortunate I am to have a loving Father, and that He is ultimately the one watching over my life! The other strong indication of God's great mercy that was upon my life, is the word "judgment"; which by itself, can pretty much mean judgment, as in, Dude, you have been judged! But taken in the context of this verse, and following the idea of what God loves, it takes on a whole new meaning; one that releases judgment, as in, Do Not Judge! Do you know why we are not to judge? That's pretty easy to answer, don't you think??? The meaning of the word "goodness" that is used in this verse is best described in the following verse by the word "mercy": "Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation." (Exodus 15:13)