The following entries are excerpts from Chad Bird’s upcoming book, Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of the Psalms (1517 Publishing, 2025), pgs. 191-192.
Psalm 86:1–7: Abounding in Steadfast Love
A slanderous rumor about God has been circulating since the days of the early church. The gist of it is this: the God of the Old Testament is mean and bloodthirsty, but the God of the New Testament is sweet and loving. You’ve heard versions of this, right? In fact, one heretic of the second century, Marcion, trashed the entire Old Testament, and parts of the New, because he was convinced of this lie. While those extremes are rare today, we still hear whispers and echoes of such sentiments, even among Christians.
All this overlooks the fact, first, that the God of the entire Bible is the same! It’s Jesus the Son, who with his Father and Spirit, is the Holy Trinity. Such a gross misrepresentation also ignores the oft-repeated Israelite confession regarding who the Lord is, his character, his heart toward us. One of these confessions is beautifully expressed in Psalm 86:5, a verse worthy of being written in gilded letters: “For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.”
You are good, tov in Hebrew. Not okay, not satisfactory, but good. The Lord did not just create a good world and continue to do good things in our world, but he is good. Goodness defines his entire being and character. And he is sallach in Hebrew, ready and willing to forgive. He needs no arm-twisting or boot-licking to get him in the mood to be merciful to sinners. As a fish is eager for water and a bird for flight, so our Lord is excited to forgive us for the sake of Christ. Finally, he is rav chesed, a Hebrew phrase meaning large in love, abounding in divine grace.
From Genesis to Revelation, from creation to this very day, our Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit, the God of the Old and New Testaments, is “good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon” him. To you, O Lord, we call! You are our good, forgiving, loving Redeemer.
Psalm 86:8–13: United My Heart
“Everything in moderation.” That maxim is a beneficial guide to most aspects of life. We can easily work, sleep, or eat too much or too little. Like many such pithy proverbs, however, there are important exceptions. For instance, moderation in our relationship with God is decidedly not good, though we pretend that life can work well that way, and our culture urges such moderation. Folks are fine with us being religious to an extent, right? They just do not want us to get carried away with it. Don’t be some “religious fanatic” for whom Christ is everything. Carve out a little niche of your life for the religious stuff. Most people are fine with that.
He is not a “quarter heart” or “half heart” kind of religious pastime, but a “whole heart” kind of King.
But Jesus? He is having none of that. He is not a “quarter heart” or “half heart” kind of religious pastime, but a “whole heart” kind of King. So we pray, “Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart” (Ps. 86:11–12). Unite my heart. Whole heart.
If polytheism were true, I suppose having a divvied-up heart would be necessary: a little for this god, a little for that. But in a one God world, we need a one-united-heart devotion, for he is our all, our everything, the one toward whom there can be no moderation.
If the claims of Christianity are true, then there is nothing moderately important about it. Jesus, who gave us his all, calls us to give him our all; to take up our cross and follow him; to fear, love, and trust him above all things; to lose our life in him and thus to find true divine life in him. Great is his steadfast love toward us, the kind of love that will not rest until it has enveloped all of whom we are in its embrace. There, in Jesus, we will discover not moderate joy or peace, but the fullness of both. Christ first. Christ completely.
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