meet "the apple of God's eye"

The Word for today:

Psalm 17

mark this:  Psalm 17:8

Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.

There's a good Hebrew/Yiddish word--chutzpah--which means a display of brazen audacity.  In Psalm 17, it seems that chutzpah is on parade.

How can David, a known sinner (see Psalm 51, just for starters…) call himself righteous and sinless:

You have tested me and you will find nothing (v. 3).

How can David call himself "the apple of God's eye"? (v. 8)  Why, the impertinence, the nerve, the chutzpah…

David can say all of that--because he's looking through the eyes of God, not man.  David knows that he, of himself, is a sinner:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.   (Psalms 51:3)

But he also knows that, like Abraham before him, he has been declared righteous in God's eyes through faith:

Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.  (Genesis 15:6)

David is righteous because God says he is.  God credited the righteousness of Jesus Christ to David when he believed the LORD.

And he will credit Jesus' righteousness to you and to me, too, if we will only take him at his word.

A remarkably comprehensive, all-purpose scripture verse confirms the simplicity of God's faith-based salvation:

So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.  (Acts 27:25)

It will be exactly as we have been told.  Thus a sinner like David can claim the righteousness of Jesus Christ himself:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This concept is so crucial that we should practice and reinforce it habitually.  A good way to start each day is by looking straight into the mirror and seeing the apple of God's eye looking straight back at you!

That may sound radical and/or crazy.  But it's also the Word of God.  That's how God sees things--and there's nothing that will alter his outlook.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~