Psalm 90 – A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God.
1 O Lord, You have been our dwelling-place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were born, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God. 3 You turn man to dust, and say, Return, O sons of men. 4 For a thousand years in Your eyes are as yesterday when it passes, and as a watch in the night. 5 You flooded them away; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass growing; 6 in the morning it sprouts and shoots up; in the evening it withers and dries up.
7 For we are consumed by Your anger, and we are troubled by Your wrath. 8 You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your face. 9 For all our days pass away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a murmur. 10 The days of our years are seventy; and if any by strength live eighty years, yet their pride is labor and vanity; for it soon passes, and we fly away. 11 Who knows the power of Your anger? And as Your fear is, so is Your fury.
12 So teach us to number our days, so that we may bring a heart of wisdom. 13 Return, O Jehovah! Until when? And give pity to Your servants. 14 O satisfy us in the morning with Your mercy, and we will be glad and rejoice all our days. 15 Make us glad according to the days of our affliction, the years in which we have seen evil. 16 Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your majesty to their sons. 17 And let the delight of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish the works of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands, establish it!
As we come to the close of one year and the beginning of the next, it is important to remember that the LORD is our dwelling place – our lives are completely dependent upon Him! He formed us in our mother’s womb and gave us life and breath, and all our days were determined by Him (Psalm 139:13-16). He holds our every breath in His hands (Daniel 5:23).
As Moses wrote in the psalm, our days in this world, because of the LORD’s wrath upon our sins, pass quickly and we fly away; but the LORD is God “from everlasting to everlasting.” The LORD (Jehovah) was God before the mountains were created and even before He brought forth the earth and the world. He has always been God and always will be (cf. John 1:1ff.)!
How important, considering the brevity of our earthly lives (because of our sinfulness), that we turn to the LORD God now for His compassion and mercy! How important it is that we number our days, knowing that our time here will pass quickly, and that we apply our hearts unto wisdom and study the Scriptures, which “make [us] wise to salvation through belief in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:15)!
Let us consider these things now before it is too late and we stand before the eternal God in judgment! Knowing the LORD and His abundant mercy through the study of His Word, we can rejoice and be glad in Christ Jesus, our crucified and risen Savior, all our days.
The LORD is our dwelling place, and He continues to be in the New Year! He has given us life and breath in this world and offers us life everlasting with Him through the gift of His Son, Messiah Jesus, and His innocent sufferings and death upon the cross in our stead. Don’t let your time pass away without acknowledging Him and trusting in His mercy for Jesus’ sake!
O everlasting God, our Maker and our Redeemer, have mercy on us and cleanse us from the guilt of our sins for Jesus’ sake and grant that we may rejoice in Your mercy both now and forevermore. Amen.
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