His Excellency
What God thinks about you.
“As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight” (Psalm 16:3).
What we think about God is one of the most important things about us. But what matters even more than that is what God thinks about us in Christ. And Psalm 16 gives us a stunning glimpse:
“As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.”
CH Spurgeon says:
The title of ‘His Excellency’ more properly belongs to the meanest saint than to the greatest governor. The true aristocracy are believers in Jesus. They are the only Right Honourables. Stars and garters are poor distinctions compared with the graces of the Spirit. He who knows them best says of them, ‘in whom is all my delight.’ …Their own opinion of themselves is far other than their Beloved’s opinion of them; they count themselves to be less than nothing, yet he makes much of them, and sets his heart towards them. What wonders the eyes of Divine Love can see where the Hands of Infinite Power have been graciously at work. It was this quicksighted affection which led Jesus to see in us a recompense for all his agony, and sustained him under all his sufferings by the joy of redeeming us from going down into the pit.
That is a staggering thought! The wonder is not that God looks past our weakness and finds something impressive in us. The wonder is that, in Christ, God sets his delight on the weak, the needy, and the undeserving. We are his beloved, not because we are lovely in ourselves, but because God has joined us to the Beloved Son.
May the Lord grant us the grace to rest more fully in his love for us. May the knowledge of his delight quiet our anxious striving, and may the fullness of his joy be our joy today!