Peter repeated these words from David in Psalms 34: God looks favorably on those who are upright and in right standing with God and is attentive to their prayers.

In David’s time, that was understood to mean those who obeyed the law, made their sacrifices and offerings, and celebrated the holy days. Peter taught that the right standing came through Jesus’ death on the cross, His burial, and His resurrection.

There’s so much here. What joy to be living in the time that Peter did, able to let go of walking the task-list line of do and do not do in order to be right in God’s eyes, ruled by the religious leaders who took every edict of God and made it an unbearable burden!

What joy to know that God Himself looks at you with favor, with love unbreakable, not because you are worthy, but simply because you have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus as yours, realizing that He died for you.

Scripture tells us that when Jesus suffered and died on the cross, He exchanged our sin and shame for His righteousness. Believer, as we live our lives, we do so cloaked in a right standing before God that we could never achieve on our own!

On the other hand, God turns His face against those who do evil, those who consistently choose anything-other-than-God. That doesn’t mean He doesn’t look at them. It is much more than that. This is setting the face like solid rock, unmoving, unflinching, against the evildoers in order to oppose, frustrate, and defeat them, to cut off their memory from the earth. That sounds much more extreme; does it not?

Dear One, make the exchange today, your guilt and shame for Christ’s righteousness. Rid yourself of the evil of following self or man or manmade gods to follow the One True and Living God.

If you’ve already made that exchange, walk confidently in the realization that God is looking at you with favor, leaning in to hear your prayers. Rejoice in Him today!

Coffee, Bible, Journal.