Joel M Bradshaw

11As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!–Psalm 40

David proclaimed two key things here that we can hold onto as well.

1. God doesn’t restrain mercy. We’ve all known people who way they will do something, but then add extra hoops to jump through or hurdles to jump over. They don’t really want to forgive you until they feel you have suffered at length. That is not God. When a person confesses their sins and repents from their evil, God gives mercy. Mercy is not getting what I deserve. And what a sinner deserves is death. God doesn’t restrain. He doesn’t manipulate. When God wishes to give mercy, he is dependable.
2. God’s steadfast love and faithfulness preserve. God not only doesn’t restrain, but he maintains. His love for us, his faithful care of us. David saw not only that God’s mercy kept him in close to God, but his love and faithfulness cared for him in that relationship. David saw the very attributes of God playing out in his life and they were his very hope.

David’s hope was based in what God didn’t restrain and David’s hope was nurtured in what God did maintain. Without God’s mercy towards our sins, we would have to pay for them ourselves. Without God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, how would we enjoy the blessings of each new day? Wouldn’t God eventually get tired of us? David’s hope is our hope in Christ.–JMB