Where Do We Find Satisfaction?

Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (Psalm 90:13–14 (ESV))

Today’s big question: where do we find satisfaction?

Reality check 5: Only true dependency brings true satisfaction.

What is your response to sin and mortality? This psalm of Moses takes a wonderful turn to the right response. “Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!” The response to our human condition is an acknowledgment of complete and utter dependency on God.

We seek God to turn upon us in all His compassion, mercy, and love. Only in reliance on God’s mercy can we face tomorrow with any hope. Even for us who have been believers many years, every day is a day filled with hope when we are dependent on God’s salvation.

What an amazing privilege to know that the hope of Israel has come. The Israelites looked forward to what has now been fulfilled, and yet they were no less dependent on Christ than we are. The human condition has never changed through the ages from the first sin in the Garden of Eden, to the generations of Israel, and even in AD 2011.

We live mortal lives in the great hope that God’s wrath might be satisfied other than upon us who deserve it. We can only seek God Himself for that satisfaction, and He has given His Son to become sin for us, taking our punishment on the Cross. In fulfillment of the law, Jesus brought, once and for all, everlasting satisfaction. The God who poured wrath on sinners has had His wrath eternally satisfied because Christ has taken the full brunt of God’s wrath for us.

We cannot do anything to earn our own salvation. God has done it all. We are completely dependent, and only in this dependency do we find true satisfaction in knowing that the only One who could take our punishment and defeat death has done so. Faith in Jesus Christ alone is our only hope, and yet it is a full and satisfying hope.

Our identity as humans must bring us no confidence in self. Only confidence in Jesus alone can be sure. He has done what no other human could do. Only in Jesus can we, too, sing, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

Today’s big idea: our dependency on Jesus brings our full satisfaction in Him.

What to pray: ask Christ to rid you of all earthly dependencies so you can depend on Him alone.