SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/17/2012 8:29:13 AM
My Worship Time Focus: A
Chain Reaction
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm
119:129-136
Message
of the verses: “129 Pe. Your
testimonies are wonderful; Therefore my soul observes them. 130 The unfolding
of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple. 131 I opened
my mouth wide and panted, For I longed for Your commandments. 132 Turn to me
and be gracious to me, After Your manner with those who love Your name. 133 Establish my footsteps in Your
word, And do not let any iniquity have dominion over me. 134 Redeem me
from the oppression of man, That I may keep Your precepts. 135 Make Your face
shine upon Your servant, And teach me Your statutes. 136 My eyes shed streams
of water, Because they do not keep Your law.”
Dr. Wiersbe concludes his introductory
commentary on this section with these wise words, “This section describes a
‘spiritual chain reaction’ in the life of the psalmist, one that can occur in
our lives if we ponder the wonders of God’s Word.” “Just as love and hate (vv.
127-128) and joy and affliction can exist in the same heart (vv. 111, 107), so
can awe and anguish. In fact, when we
begin to see the beauty and wonder of Scriptures, we also begin to understand
the ugliness of sin and the cheapness of what the world has to offer.” (Warren Wiersbe)
Wonder
Leads to Obedience (v. 129): “Your
testimonies are wonderful; Therefore my soul observes them.” The psalmist states that it is because of the
wonder of God’s Word that he will observe the commandments that he finds in
them. This means not only is the Word of
God wonderful, but the God of the Word is wonderful and that should be reason
enough to obey His Word.
Obedience
leads to understanding (v. 130):
“130 The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to
the simple.” God’s Word is light that can come into our hearts and into our
minds and when it does it brings spiritual insight and spiritual understanding
as described in 2 Cor. 4:1-6, “1 Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we
received mercy, we do not lose heart, 2
but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in
craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth
commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are
perishing, 4 in whose case the
god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5
For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your
bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of
darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
Now let us take a look at the word “unfolding”
that is used in verse 130, but it is translated as entrance in the KJV. This word means “disclosure” and “opening up”
as seen in Luke 24:32 “They said to one another, "Were not our hearts
burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining
the Scriptures to us?’” Luke 24 has the
story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus and having an encounter with the
Risen Lord who explains the scriptures to them and in the same way a Spirit
filled Pastor will open up the Word of God to his congregation as he preaches
from God’s Word.
Understanding
Leads to Deeper Desire (v. 131):
“131 I opened my mouth wide and panted, For I longed for Your
commandments.” Let us look at Psalm 42:1-2 to help us understand
what the psalmist is saying in this verse:
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O
God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and
appear before God?” Job also will give
us his insight in Job 23:12, “have not departed from the command of His lips; I
have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.’” It is not good for us to lose the desire for the Word of God for when
we do this we may look for substitutes that the world has to offer, and what
the world has to offer is not good for us.
Desire
Leads to Love for God (v. 132): “132
Turn to me and be gracious to me, After Your manner with those who love Your
name.” In
John 14:21-24 we learn how the child of God experiences God’s love through the
Word, “21 "He who has
My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves
Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to
him." 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has
happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the
world?" 23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My
Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 “He
who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not
Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
As we look at the different names of God in
the Bible they reveal who God truly is and to love His name means that we are
loving God. Dr. Wiersbe states that the
psalmist is speaking about the covenant promises that God had given to Israel
and if they would have kept them God would have blessed them and He would have
exhibited to them His power and mercy, but they did not do this and they were
judged by the Lord. This is one of the
things that brings fear to my heart as I look at our once great country that
feared the Lord, but now there seems to be little fear of the Lord in our
country.
God’s
Love Leads to Guidance and Freedom (vv. 133-132): “133 Establish my footsteps in Your word, And do not let any
iniquity have dominion over me. 134 Redeem me from the oppression of
man, That I may keep Your precepts.” Because
of the importance of this section to me I want to copy what Dr. Wiersbe has to
say about it in its entirety: “When we
experience the love of God in our hearts, we keep His commandments (John
14:15), and obedience to His commandments sets us free from slavery of sin
(Romans 6). The word ‘dominion’ means
‘autocratic rule,’ but sin is not supposed to have dominion over us (Rom.
6:12-16). But there is more: we are also
set free from the oppression of people and the enslavement it can bring (v.
134). When you are the servant of Jesus
Christ, you are free from slavery to people, ‘You were bought with a price; do
not become slaves of men’ (1Cor. 7:23).”
Freedom
in Christ brings us God’s Blessing (vv. 135-136): “135 Make Your face shine upon Your servant,
And teach me Your statutes. 136 My eyes shed streams of water, Because they do
not keep Your law.” When God
hides His face from His people He is disciplining them, but when God’s face
shines upon His people He is giving them blessings. My prayer for the Church in our country is
that God will once again have mercy on us and send a wonderful awaking to us
like He has done two times before in this country. We need the face of God to be shining upon us
in order to revive us and cleanse us from the many sins that we as a nation
have committed against a holy God. We
need to seek His face in order to seek His blessing that we desperately need. Dr. Wiersbe states that “a broken heart and a
blessed heart can exist in the same person at the same time. Jeremiah wept over the sins of a nation about
to be destroyed and Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they had rejected
Him. The apostle Paul wept over lost
souls as well as over professed believers in the church who were living for the
world and the flesh. If our enjoyment of
God’s Word reached our hearts, then we ought to have a burden for the lost and
want to try to reach them for Christ.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Love the
Lord and Love His Word is what is coming to me from this section. Having a love for the lost and not judging
them, but trusting in God’s justice is something that I want to have as the
psalmist did as he wept over those who did not keep God’s Law.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: Trust the Lord to doing His justice in the
world.
Memory
verses for the week: 1Cor 13:1-7
1 ¶ If
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have
become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all
knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have
love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all
my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but
do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 ¶
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and
is not arrogant, 5 does not act
unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into
account a wrong suffered, 6 does not
rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things, endures all things.”
9/17/2012
9:42:00 AM
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