by Paul David Tripp
The LORD is my light and my salvation.
Psalm 27:1

Think with me about what David said in this beautiful psalm. David didn’t say the Lord is light. He didn’t say the Lord is salvation. He didn’t say the Lord is a stronghold, did he? He qualified these nouns with the word my, and that changes everything.
Enough of abstract, impersonal, distant, isolated, informational theology! It’s not the theology of the Word of God. It doesn’t help us; it hurts us. I don’t need more ideas rattling around in my brain. I’ve got way more than I can think about already. Half the time I’m confused.
You see, the theology of the Word of God, properly understood, never just defines who God is. It redefines who you are as His children. And that two-letter word my makes all the difference in the world. The Lord is my light. This righteousness that exists by grace has been unleashed on me. It’s my righteousness by grace. I could’ve never earned it; I could’ve never deserved it.
As a poor, zealous seminary student, I was exegeting my way through Romans. I had gotten a big legal pad and cut the corners off every other page. And I had actually taken the page out of my Greek New Testament and glued it there so you could see the Greek from both sides. And I was writing copious theological notes. I got to about Romans 7 or 8, and it hit me that I had spent what seemed like endless hours studying Paul’s letter to the Romans, and I had not been touched by it at all. It had been solely an idea exercise. I was a theo-geek. I prided myself in understanding all the labyrinthine theology in that passage, but it did nothing for me and I began to weep.
The Lord is my salvation. I’m saved. Me, this dark man with all those selfish, evil thoughts, with all my self-aggrandizing behavior, with all my wanting to be sovereign over my own life, salvation has burst into my life. I’m saved, I’m saved, I’m saved!

Thought to Remember for Today

Listen, you don’t hope in justification; you hope in a Savior who justifies you. Jesus didn’t purchase save-ability; He took names to the cross. You don’t find life in the abstract concept of salvation, but in a God who willingly sacrificed Himself to save you.

Fitzpatrick, E. (2016). Grace untamed: a 60-day devotional. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook.