‘Good…To Draw Near to God’

 

‘Good…To Draw Near to God’

But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, That I may declare all Your works.

Psalm 73:28

Asaph was a thinker and as he analyzed the world around him, he saw things that troubled him deeply.  He found himself deeply troubled by the prosperity of the wicked. He describes their prosperity in the passage which precedes our text. God very graciously revealed to Asaph the true and correct state of affairs regarding the wicked. As God revealed these things to him, he came to understand ‘their end.’ He saw that, ‘Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, So, Lord, when You awake, You shall despise their image.’ Because of his errors of understanding, Asaph experienced deep conviction, ‘Thus my heart was grieved, And I was vexed in my mind.  I was so foolish and ignorant; I was like a beast before You.’ His conviction led him to confession and his confession led him to devotion. From the depressed, vexed place in which he had begun, he landed in a good spiritual condition. His conclusion regarding this spiritual experience forms our text for the next little while. Asaph reached the conclusion that, ‘it is good for me to draw near to God.’ When we have exhausted all our cognitive energy upon subjects which we cannot understand apart from Divine Revelation we then arrive at the conclusion that, ‘it is good for me to draw near to God.’ As we draw closer to Christ, He reveals to us greater truth.  He shows us what we can never understand while we remain at a distance. Today, let us draw near to Christ with our whole hearts knowing that He can enable us to understand.

High King of Heaven, we rejoice that You are Sovereign,
and that Your Rule extends over all things.
We praise You that we can trust You, to do right in every situation,
even the ones which we least understand.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning