Psalm 103:3-4
who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who
redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion
Yesterday we praised God for his 'holy name' (who he is in
himself). In today's verses David focuses on his 'benefits' (the particular good things God had done for him). At first glance, this verse is confusing. We know that Christians aren’t always healed from disease. The Bible is quite clear that God is always able to heal physically, but– in this world - he only sometimes does so. (In the new creation, he absolutely will heal all diseases and injuries, fully and completely).
We need to remember that David is living under the Old Covenant, in which physical blessings (land, abundant harvest, peace, safety and well-being) were a picture of the blessings that come from being God's people. The opposites (exile, famine, disease and war) were what happened when the people turned away from God. That was a temporary situation, designed to
teach them and us how much better it is to belong to God than to reject him.
We live under the New Covenant. Our blessings are primarily
spiritual, not physical. So we shouldn't read Old Testament promises about physical blessings (including protection from
disease) as being true for us today in the same way that they were for Old Testament Israelites. Instead, we have spiritual blessings that are EVEN BETTER than wealth, peace, long life and freedom from illness!
God forgives us. He rescues us from the dark hopelessness of
life without him. He generously pours out underserved love and compassion on us. How could we possibly forget these things?
And yet we do! What we think we need seems so important that these amazing blessings shrink and get buried in a corner our minds, as though they were irrelevant. Today, whatever else is going on around us, let's take a moment to deliberately remember the wonderful things that God has done for us, and thank him.
