"MerryHearted"

"The LORD hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad." (Psalms 126:3)

  Before you go and start thinking this is just about being glad, there is something we must come to terms with before the gladness can be genuine. Paul uses a simple illustration in the Book of Ephesians that gets this point across, that we are united in Christ, that were once were far off! To be perfectly clear, there was absolutely nothing we could do to reunite ourselves to God, absolutely nothing! Romans 3:10-11 says, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God." So, in order for God to save us, He first had to reach out and touch us; because we surely were not going to find Him otherwise! There is simply no other way to explain how it can happen. The grace by which God has saved us came before mercy, because He surely gave us what we did not deserve before He did not give what we did deserve. He reached out to us and showed Himself to us, that we could see our great need for His mercy; if not for that, we would have never asked for mercy to begin with. To see the picture painted by this verse, we have got to understand the sadness behind the 'Whereof,' because it speaks of something that was otherwise impossible for it to happen, if not for God! It is sort of like the story of the man who was throwing the fish back into the sea that has washed up on shore; as he was asked, Why are you wasting your time, there are way too many of them for that to matter? And the man answered back, as he tossed in another fish: It mattered to that one! That was me, washed up on shore and a fish out of water; lost in a vast amount of other fish that were washed up on shore; and then here comes God, to pick me up and toss me back! If not for Him choosing me, I would still be stuck on that shore, dying and without any hope! That is the point of what Paul was trying to say, the far off point is the distance we were separated from God; and there was nothing we could do about it, it was up to God to bring us back to Him...

"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." (Isaiah 55:11-13)