The Most High, the one who protects you, towers over anything you fear.
We live in perilous times. Without faith in God, there is much to fear, but not so for people who know their God.
To know God fully is to be fearless. To know him fully is to trust him. Full knowledge of God drives out fear.
In perilous times we need full understanding of his protection. Psalm 91 gives that understanding. Therefore we will meditate on it for a few months, establishing its truths in our hearts. It is our new theme.
Psalm 91:1
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.”
These are more than beautiful words. When you memorize, repeat, and believe them, they will establish your soul.
Who is God? He is the Most High.
The Most High
I live four blocks from Willis Tower. It has 110 stories. My residence has 49 stories. It is tall until you compare it with Willis. In Chicago, the Willis Tower is the most high. It surpasses and excels all others. Towering over all, overshadowing all, looking down on all, it is supreme.
God is the Most High. Nothing that seems big, tall, and threatening to us threatens him. He is like the Willis Tower high and tall, but not with smaller skyscrapers clustered around him; rather, with one-level buildings around him, or with ant hills around him.
No created thing can cancel or neutralize him.
God towers over disease, over coronavirus. He towers over Satan, demons, and darkness. He towers over rioters, looters, and thugs. He towers over all people.
He towers over life and death, over heaven and hell, over past and future, over time and eternity.
He is the Most High.
The Most High over Egypt
When God took his people Israel out of slavery in Egypt, he displayed his glory as the Most High warrior. Egypt was the superpower of the day, with well-trained soldiers, chariots, and horses. Egypt had its magicians, secret arts, and sorceries. Arrogant, hardhearted Pharaoh had his royal throne and many servants. And Egypt had its gods, thousands of gods, whom they worshiped instead of the true God. Through the eyes of flesh, Egypt was a towering nation greatly to be feared.
Then God came to deliver his people and judge their oppressors, sending one plague after another: drinking water changed to blood, teeming frogs, biting flies, swarming gnats, pummeling hail, painful boils, green-eating locusts, pitch darkness, the death angel striking the firstborn. Each plague brought proud Pharaoh, his people, and their false gods low. No matter their human and satanic might, they could not resist the Most High with his limitless power over the forces of nature.
And when Pharaoh drove Israel out of Egypt, even the Red Sea could not resist the Most High. The Towering One parted the waters, and Israel walked through on dry land with a wall of water on its left and a wall of water on its right, held by invisible hands. And when Egyptian soldiers tried to follow, the Most High released the mighty waters to destroy his enemies.
Dwelling in his shelter
In the New Covenant era inaugurated by Christ, the Most High seeks not to destroy his enemies but to save them. But he is still the Towering One. He crushes Satan; principalities, powers, and authorities of darkness; and demons under his feet. He punishes and brings to nothing great nations that persist in evil. He controls the forces of nature. He defeats the sin and strongholds of our souls.
At the tomb of Jesus he stood as the Most High and conquered an enemy far greater than Pharaoh and Egypt. There the Lord towered over death. In the human flesh of Jesus he reversed its power, and for the first time in history released in Jesus the power of an eternal, resurrection body.
“‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:55–57, ESV)
Towering over fear
Because he is Most High, we can dwell in his shelter. For the human heart, God is like a home, a dwelling. He is a shelter from storm, chaos, disease, evildoers, and lawless ones. We need not—and must not—fear them, for whomever we fear becomes most high over our thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Now and always, remember that God is the Most High. You can dwell safely in the protection of that shelter.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)