“Who is like Yahweh [the Lord] our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth?” ~King David

Tags

See the source image

Starting is important. We all need to start. The important thing though is to finish. Our prayer to God is have him finish in us what he started.

God’s goal is for us to be complete. That is a journey he is taking us on. We don’t start at the finish line. That is the truth that Jesus reveals to us.

Yahweh [The Lord] will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

English Standard Version. (2016). (Psalm 138:8). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Good news: Yahweh will fulfill his purpose for our lives. Our job is to love God. He will not forsake us. Never, ever, ever! In the power of the Holy Spirit, we will finish and finish strong.

Psalm 138 juxtaposes the immanence and transcendence of God without needing to clarify or resolve the ambiguity inherent in that juxtaposition. Yahweh is the God of the heavens, yet he is fully active in creation.

Given the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon, the subsequent exile, and even the rather bleak circumstances that greeted the people of God when they returned home, one might not blame a psalmist had he tamped down his cosmic claims about the universal rule of God.

In the ancient Near East, military success and the well-being of a nation were often associated with the might of a national deity.
Given the structure of such a worldview and given Israel’s recent demise, there were potential grounds for calling into question the faithfulness of Yahweh, much less, Yahweh’s might.
Yet difficulties notwithstanding, the psalmist presses forward with a radical confession of the incommensurability of Israel’s God: “Who is like our God?” The implied answer is clear: there is none.