Psalm 119:94 – I’m Yours
I’m yours! Save me!
For I have searched out your precepts.
It’s good to remember that “save” has quite a number of meanings other than the common Christian understanding of salvation from sin and for eternity. Salvation could be from whatever threat the one offering the prayer might experience.
But I think the greatest impact of this verse is in the first two words, either in Hebrew or as I’ve translated them. “I’m yours.” Everything follows from that initial claim, the claim made by God, that the human person is a child of God.
It may be tempting to regard this as applying only to Israel. It does, in fact, apply to Israel in a special way. Similarly, Christians might view this as applying especially only to Christians. Again, there is a sense in which we, as the body of Christ, can say we belong to God.
But one of the messages that comes through clearly in the Old Testament is that God is sovereign over and cares for all the nations. Thus one could truly say that all the nations are God’s, but Israel is God’s in a particular way.
The Psalmist has searched out God’s precepts, and among those precepts are commands to care for the stranger, the foreigner, and those less fortunate. Right from the beginning, when God calls Abram, he blesses him and tells him he is to be a blessing.
There are exclusive groups and inclusive groups. In an exclusive group, you are designated as someone special, someone who can be a member of a select group, because of your birth, your attainments, or even because of random selection. People in an exclusive group are supposed to help keep the walls secure and the doors shut.
In an inclusive group, anyone is invited. The only thing special about the people on the inside is the fact that they’ve heard the invitation and accepted it. This is Christianity, or should be. The mission is to invite others into the grace which we have received.
Some wonder if the Jews can still be the chosen people from a Christian perspective. Of course they can. They have been chosen by God and given a mission. It was never an exclusive club in the sense of being the only people God cared. for. It was exclusive in terms of the call to mission, a call going back to Abraham.
I can say to God, “I’m yours.” I always have that privilege. I do not have the privilege of saying, “I belong to God and that other guy doesn’t.”
Who can you treat as a child of God today?
(Featured image yy ana. Licensed from Adobe Stock.)
