Text: Psalm 100
It is often easy for us to confess the Creeds and say “Yes, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” but it is another thing to grasp the extent of His magnificent creation. It is even more difficult to reconcile our place in the vastness of His handiwork!
Psalm 100 is a psalm appreciating God’s unending goodness and mercy. More than a list of His accomplishments (because this psalm is quite short compared to others), at its heart it is a rejoicing for those in Christ Jesus, those washed in the blood of His death.
“Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture,” verse 3 tells us. Out of the entirety of the universe, God knows you! For the sake of Christ Jesus, He loves and forgives all your sin, both those sins committed by your hands and that sin which endures in your human nature. Because of your baptism into Christ’s death on the cross, you are numbered among the “sheep of his pasture”—protected, valued, never forgotten.
The sinful world might tell us that we determine our value and what we do with our lives and the lives of others, but we know from this psalm and throughout Scripture that it is God “who made us” and every person and living thing. We “give thanks to him” and “bless his name” that we should be numbered among His children.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of Your dear Son, my beloved Savior Jesus Christ, whose death atoned for me that I might be numbered among the sheep of Your pasture. Please keep me and the lives of all, both born and unborn, in Your tender loving care so that all may have the same opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
(Philip Jaseph, Sem II)