The Psalms are full of beautiful songs and prayers that will fill our heart with worship and praise for our gracious heavenly Father. Psalm 103 is a song of praise to God that reminds us of two truths: the dreadful reality of my sin, and the extravagance of God’s love.

This Psalm does not shy away from calling out our sin for what it is. Our iniquity (vs. 3) is perverse and corrupt. And the effect of sin in our lives is dreadful—just look around at the wicked things that have been done and continue to be done. Sin is also willful. The word David uses in verse 12 (‘transgressions’) highlights the fact that when we lived in sin we were in active rebellion against God. Sin is not merely a “slip up” or a “mistake,” like missing a turn when we’re driving. It is much more sinister than that. Our sin is also terminal: sin leads us to “the pit” (vs. 4). The saying is true that “Sin will take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” As Paul said in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death…”  When we read and reflect on this Psalm, we cannot escape the fact that it reminds us how serious the sin problem is.

I’ve painted a pretty dark picture from this Psalm about the reality of our sin, but the Psalm reminds us of something else too—the extravagance of God’s love. The Psalm describes his extravagant love in at least three different ways. First, he is forgiving. “He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (vs. 10). He removes our sins from us as far as the East is from the West! Second, he is gracious. “The Lord is merciful and gracious…” (vs. 8). God is not stingy with his grace. He has given us extravagant grace, grace that is greater than all our sins, as the hymn reminds us. Third, he is compassionate. He is gentle and tender with us, taking into account our weakness and human frailty. “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (vs. 14). When we read these descriptions of God’s forgiving, gracious, and compassionate love for us, we should be filled with love and worship for him.

When we have come to know and experience God’s extravagant love, we will also want to imitate him and be forgiving, gracious, and compassionate toward others. It is hard to be all those things, which is why we need constant reminders that God has been so good to us. This week, praise God for his extravagant love and ask him to help you show that same kind of love to someone in your life who could use a little forgiveness, grace, and compassion.

When we look back at the Old Covenant it can be easy to see all the rules and think that the covenant just amounted to rule keeping. We can even begin to think of the Old Covenant as if it were a matter of business-like transactions: ‘If I just do X, Y, and Z that is commanded in the covenant, then God will give me A, B, and C and I can go on with my life.’ We know that this is how God’s people began to view the covenant. Instead of being faithful and loyal exclusively to the Lord, they began to practice syncretism, which is to say they began to mix elements of pagan religion with their worship to the Lord. They never completely stopped worshipping the Lord, but they began worshipping other gods alongside him (for example, see Zeph. 1:4). They thought that if they performed the rituals of the law and external acts of obedience the Lord would still bless them.

In fact, it was not merely external acts of obedience that God wanted from his people. In the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses reestablished the covenant with the people of Israel, God made it clear that he demanded their full and undivided loyalty and their glad and willing obedience from the heart. God warned the people that if they were unfaithful to him, he would punish them for their wickedness. “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you… Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything.” (Deut. 28:45-48, italics added).

The punishment for the stubborn and unfaithful Israelites who refused to serve the Lord with glad and joyful hearts was that they would serve cruel, foreign nations. How much better it would have been for them to serve the Lord who gave them an abundance of all things than to serve their wicked enemies. But they refused to listen to the Lord and love him with all their heart, soul and might. They did what was right in their own eyes instead of trusting that what the Lord commands is always best. They made a mockery of God by offering empty, hollow worship from hearts that were lifeless and devoid of love for their Lord who saved them. They did not give God the undivided loyalty he deserves. They did not serve him with glad and willing obedience from the heart. May we never forget that God wants our hearts, our love, our loyalty. May we always love him and serve him with joyfulness and gladness of heart!