"Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws." Psalm 119:164
When we think of a number that is perfect we always think of 10. For me, I associate this with Olympic scoring and with spelling test scores. I remember as a kid always trying to get 10 out of 10 on my weekly spelling test, because that was a perfect score. More recently, I remember perfect 10's from Olympic competition especially in gymnastics. These amazing performances are memorable and noteworthy. We live in the western world though and the Hebrew influence on our thinking and number system is not very notable. In Hebrew culture, for the Jew, seven is the perfect number. There are countless sevens in scripture that symbolize God's perfection.
God uses the number seven in the Days of Creation, the last words on the cross, and as the example of how many times we should forgive when multiplied by 70. The word seven is not only perfect, it is symbolic of being countless or infinite. In the same way we should forgive like Peter was taught 70 x 7 times. (Which doesn't mean exactly 490 times). Here in this passage, we are given the example of praising Him perfectly by praising Him countless times. "Seven times." You can't praise God too much.
We praise Him because of His righteousness, His perfection, and how that is reflected in His Word, the Truth, the Bible. His Laws are perfect and are righteous because, they reflect His character, which is perfect. Our praise should be perfect in its sincerity, and in its intention, and in our all out love and gratefulness for Him, who He is, and what He has done for us. We can literally praise Him for everything. That should give us infinite and countless reasons to praise Him.
When studying the Bible, we should not always try to understand the words only, but their meaning, too. Hope this gave you a fresh reason to praise Him. Praising Him, Pastor Fred
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment