In our basement, where legos cover most horizontal surfaces, there's a simple rule that everyone observes -- if you made it, you can take it apart, but if you didn't make it, you better not take it apart without asking. To do so is to risk tantrums. The thinking is that if you made it, you own it -- so it is yours to decide what happens to it. This makes basic sense, even to the youngest among us.
The Psalmist uses the same line of thinking -- the earth belongs to the Lord, since it was the Lord who made it. Therefore, it is up to God to decide what happens to the creations. It is God who can determine the fate of the people within, for God made us.
Thanks be to God that the God we look to for judgment is the same God who crafted us and the same God who went to the cross and died for us. If we can start the year with this foundational truth anchored in our souls, that gives us a firm foundation to move forward from -- that when we look to God, we need not fear judgment, because the God who comes to judge is the God who came to save in Jesus Christ, and so we can stand in God's holy place because through the atoning sacrifice and free gift of mercy that is freely given by Jesus Christ, we can claim to have clean hands and a pure heart. This is the blessing we have received from the Lord!
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