RIGHTEOUS IN ALL HIS WAYS & GRACIOUS IN ALL HIS WORKS - KEY WORDS IN PSALM 145:17

Psalm 145:17 "The Lord is righteous in all His ways, gracious in all His works"

Perhaps this verse is a little inaccurate in the NKJV as the word "gracious" is actually "holy" in the KJV.

This verse and the verses thereafter describes the character of the Lord. 

Just like the Psalmist says in Ps 27:4, I love to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in His temple. I believe that I am doing this ONE thing that God wants me to seek after i.e. by dwelling in His presence daily (as best as I can) and admiring His beauty by studying and memorizing Psalms 145. Why the Psalms? I choose it because it is poetic and it helps me in my prayers!

In order to strengthen my Bible memory I choose to study verse by verse and to write lines! Yes, this verse would have been written up to 10 times in my diary before this blog is written!

Being righteous and being holy or gracious is a beauty of the Lord's character which is God's and God alone. Man cannot be truly righteous or holy apart from God. The monk or sadhu may think he is holy by shaving his head, eating vegetables, growing long hair and beard, avoiding swatting a fly or mosquito or staying in a cave, or walking on fire or poking himself in the body but sadly he is not - the fact is there is no righteousness and holiness without God in our lives!

When I think that I can only be righteous in Christ, I feel a big relief. Thank God for Jesus for there is no righteousness without His work on the Cross. Thank God that my righteousness is in Christ and Christ alone and not in what I do!

Some key words:

1. "The Lord" - Jehovah is the Hebrew word which means THE EXISTING ONE.

2. "...righteous..." - the word "tsaddiyq" appears many times in the Bible. It covers the following areas:

- just, righteous (of government). We can pray for governments to be "tsaddiyq"

- just, right (of one's cause). We can pray for God to work things out for us in our office when we are wrongly accused or shamed.

- just, righteous (conduct and character). We can be righteous in our treatment of others.

- just, righteous (as vindicated or justified by God). We can trust God to justify and vindicate us when blamed for things we did not do.

I realized one thing - whenever I am ill treated by my boss, God will always work out His righteousness on my behalf. He will always prove me right if I am right. 

For example recently, I had a case once where I wrote a memo to recommend to drop a case. She asked me to change the recommendation to a totally different recommendation from mine. She wanted the case pursued. In the end the bank lost the case and had to spend hundreds of thousands in legal fees. Wisdom is justified in her children. When I put on the wisdom of God, I will surely be "tsaddiyq"-ed by God!

To this day I keep the memo which I had prepared earlier in the file to remind myself that my boss is not perfect, God is. My boss can make mistakes, God cannot. 

The fact is that every morning I will spend up to 30 minutes or more just praying in the Spirit. It is in the quiet morning hours that God will show me how to handle the most difficult of my work assignments. In fact, God spoke to me to go even earlier to work and to commit one hour of praying in the Spirit to Him! 30 minutes is just not enough for Him and for me!

One sister shared on Saturday that God spoke to her during corporate prayer to go into extended hours of prayer!

3. "......in all His ways....." - interestingly the word "way" means "derek" in Hebrew a popular English name. It refers to:

- a road
- a distance
- a journey
- a manner 
- a direction
- course of life (figurative)
- character (figurative)

4. "...holy...." - this word is "chciyd" in Hebrew meaning kind, faithful, godly, holy one, saint, pious, merciful. The NKJV translates it as gracious.

5 "...works..." - meaning "ma'aseh" a deed, thing done, act of deliverance or judgment which is a work of God.

I am comforted. When going through trials in the office, I have this assurance that God will vindicate me and bring me out of trouble as long as I wait upon Him to work things out for me.