Musings on Psalm 119;
Aleph. Verses 1 - 8 (NASB)
How blessed are those whose way is blameless,
Who walk in the law of the Lord.
Of course there is only One Whose Way is Blameless, but in Him we rest in His righteousness and we learn, by His grace and the Holy Spirit, to live as He lives. For those who follow Him, our Lord Jesus, He is our Way and He is blameless. Just as our Lord Jesus delights to do the will of God our Father, so He teaches us to delight in doing the will of God. As the Apostle John writes, if we say we abide in Him then we ought to live as He lives - and indeed we can do so as He lives in us. Just as doing the will of the Father was sustenance for Jesus, so we learn in Christ to live by our Father’s will, we learn to walk in His Word, in His law.
How blessed are those who observe His testimonies,
Who seek Him with all their heart.
Jesus teaches that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled, and He teaches us to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things will be added to us. When we drive on our nation’s highways we observe traffic signs and signals, how much more ought we to observe the testimonies of our God as we travel the road of life?
They also do no unrighteousness;
They walk in His ways.
As John makes clear in his first epistle, the follower of Jesus Christ does not make sin the pattern of his life; we learn in Christ to live in His light and life and as we do so His blood cleanses us from all sin. When we sin we confess our sins and we know that Christ is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (see 1 John chapters 1 & 2).
You have ordained Your precepts,
That we should keep them diligently.
Psalm 19 dovetails nicely with Psalm 119 - in God’s Word we find life; we ought to seek them, to meditate on them, to dig deep into them. If treasure hunters dig deep into the earth for jewels and gold, how much more ought we do dig down deep in God’s Word to find the treasure that surpasses all that we can imagine. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians Chapter Two) - what we find on the surface is only the beginning - who will dig down deep and then dig more, and more - discovering the riches of Jesus Christ?
Oh that my ways may be established
To keep Your statutes!
Here is a prayer that ought to be continually on our lips - that we might live lives of obedience to our heavenly Father, not being afraid or ashamed to be identified with our Lord Jesus as we follow Him in His Word. Consider the wise and foolish men of Matthew Chapter 7 - one builds his house on the sand, the other on the rock; this is the difference between a person who hears the Word of God but does not obey, and the one who obeys the Word in response to hearing. It is the obedient woman or man who will be established in Christ.
Then I shall not be ashamed
When I look upon all Your commandments.
When I look upon all Your commandments.
There is pressure in the world, and in much of the professing church, to conform to the expectations of society, to take the easy way out, to play to popular opinion rather than follow the commandments of God. Jesus says that He will acknowledge those who are not ashamed of Him (Mark Chapter 8), but that He will not acknowledge those who are ashamed of Him and His words. How many closet Christians are there? Not only in the public sphere, but even in the professing church? After all, who wants to be accused of making too much of religion? Who wants to be accused of seeking to learn the way of holiness? Peer pressure is real. Society’s disapproval is real. Even the church’s disapproval of those who seek to follow Jesus can be real. There is a shame and reproach associated with Jesus Christ and His Cross, as the writer of Hebrews says, let’s go outside the camp bearing His reproach.
I shall give thanks to You with uprightness of heart,
When I learn Your righteous judgments.
Shall we have joy in learning His judgments? His judgments will conform our hearts to His image. Without His Law, His Word, His precepts, His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments our hearts are bent and deformed, left to ourselves our hearts turn inward upon ourselves. Only the Word of God in Christ Jesus can cause broken men and women and children to stand upright, only Christ can teach us uprightness of heart. As God in Christ restores His image in us it is right that we should give thanks and praise Him - for once we were blind but now we see; once we were dead but now we are alive in Christ.
I shall keep Your statutes;
Do not forsake me utterly!
Our desire is to keep God’s Word, but in and of ourselves we cannot do so, it is only as God’s grace works within us in Christ that we are able to desire Him and to keep His statutes. Let us never be so foolish to think that in and of ourselves we can produce an ounce of obedience - that is a fool’s thought. Just as our entrance into the Kingdom of God was initiated and consummated by Christ, in Christ, and through Christ; so our daily lives are completely dependent on Jesus Christ. Let us not be as the foolish Galatians (Galatians Chapter 3) who thought than having begun in the Spirit that they would then seek perfection in and of themselves. There is no breath that we breathe that is not dependent on the grace of God in Christ. There is no obedient response to God within us that is not utterly dependent on the Holy Spirit. As the Trinity lives within us, as the Word of the Trinity makes its home within us - we live unto the Trinity, in the Trinity, and through the Trinity. We have the promise of Jesus that He will be with us, even to the end of the age.
Posts
