SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/21/2012 8:37:49 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Blessed Are the Balanced
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference:
Psalm 119:161-168
Message
of the verses: “161 Shin. Princes
persecute me without cause, But my heart stands in awe of Your words. 162 I
rejoice at Your word, As one who finds great spoil. 163 I hate and despise
falsehood, But I love Your law. 164 Seven times a day I praise You, Because of
Your righteous ordinances. 165 Those who love Your law have great peace, And nothing causes
them to stumble. 166 I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, And do Your
commandments. 167 My soul
keeps Your testimonies, And I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep Your
precepts and Your testimonies, For all my ways are before You.”
I have always said that the entire Bible is a
balanced book, and as we have studied the 119th Psalm we can see
that it is also balanced, and we will see that this quality is especially true
in this stanza.
Respect
and Rejoicing (vv. 161-162): “Princes
persecute me without cause, But my heart stands in awe of Your words. 162 I
rejoice at Your word, As one who finds great spoil.”
Let
us go back to verse 23 for some insight on verse 161. “Even though princes sit and talk against me,
Your servant meditates on Your statutes.”
We see that the princes began to talk against the psalmist in verse 23,
but now they are persecuting against him in verse 160. The psalmist does not change as he continues
to be strengthened by the Word of God.
The psalmist has learned as we should learn that when we fear the Lord
we need to fear no one else. We can see
that the psalmist both respected and rejoiced in the Word of God at the same
time. We must learn that the joy of the Lord and the greatness
of the Lord are friends and not enemies.
As the princes were trying to rob the psalmist of perhaps even his life
he was growing wealthier in the Word of God.
In this world today we hear a lot about money as we have TV networks
dedicated 24/7 speaking about money.
When I began my job at Ford in 1965 I was making $2.68 per hour and a
nice house cost no more that $12-15 thousand dollars. Today you can’t buy a good used car for that
much money. God’s Word is full of
promises and they never lose their value, and we cannot be robbed of them.
Love
and Hate (v. 163): “163 I hate and
despise falsehood, But I love Your law.”
When
people think about God they mostly think that God is love, and He surely is
love, but God also hates sin, and the Bible teaches us that God hates divorce. The Bible states that “Jacob I loved, but
Esau I hated. God hated sin so much that
He had to use love to satisfy His hatred of sin, and this was accomplished by
sending His Son to planet earth to become sin for us in order to give us His
righteousness. We see love and justice
on the cross and for that I will be eternally thankful. We have seen the psalmist speaking about love
and hate throughout this psalm for he states that He loves God’s Law but hated
every false way (vv. 97, 104, 127-128).
The psalmist states He loves God’s law but hated double-minded people
(v. 113).
Praise
and poise (vv. 164-165): “164 Seven
times a day I praise You, Because of Your righteous ordinances. 165 Those who
love Your law have great peace, And nothing causes them to stumble.”
We
can see praise and poise in these two verses as praise is found in verse 164
and poise is found in verse 165. We see
the psalmist praising the Lord seven times a day, but you realize that this is
not a matter of pride that he writes these words, and he is not a legalist in
doing this. Dr. Wiersbe writes “The legalist would set a goal
and be proud that he reached it; the Spirit-filled believer sets no goal but
goes beyond any goal he might have set.
Just as prayer can bring peace to our hearts (Phil. 4:4-7), so praise
can bring peace as well. Focusing on the
Lord, asking for nothing, and totally lost in our praise of Him, has a way of
making the problems look much smaller and the future much brighter. But praise also helps us to have poise in our
Christian walk and to not stumble (Jude 24) or cause others to stumble (1Cor.
8:13; Romans 14:13). The singing saint
is a stable saint, walking on a level path even when the enemy digs pits and
sets up obstacles.”
Walking
and Waiting (vv. 166-168): “166 I
hope for Your salvation, O LORD, And do Your commandments. 167 My soul keeps
Your testimonies, And I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep Your precepts and
Your testimonies, For all my ways are before You.”
Titus 2:13 is a wonderful promise that all
true believers are looking forward to: “looking
for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and
Savior, Christ Jesus.” This is what all
true believers are truly looking forward for we know that this is going to
happen someday, as it begins with the rapture of God’s church, the bride of
Christ will be taken to heaven to be rewarded for the work that they have done
for the Lord while in the body. This
will happen in heaven while the world will be in the tribulation period, the
last seven years of earth as we know it.
Revelations 19 shows us that we will return to the earth with our Lord
at the very end of the tribulation period and then the Lord will end the war
before it destroys the entire earth. He
will then separate the sheep from the goats sending the goats into hell along
with the antichrist, the false prophet and the devil. After this He will recreate the earth into
something like it was at the first creation and He will reign from Jerusalem
for 1000 years fulfilling His promises to the nation of Israel that are
scattered throughout the OT. The new
heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem await after the end of the 1000 year
kingdom as the entire universe is uncreated (2Peter 3:10) and eternity with the
Lord begins for all those who have trusted Him for their forgiveness of sins.
Now we have to keep this in balance with what
we are to be doing now while on planet earth.
The reason that Peter told his readers that the earth would be
completely destroyed was to encourage them to keep working. “9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as
some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish
but for all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a
thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be
destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
“11 Since all these things are to be
destroyed in this way, what
sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the
day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with
intense heat! 13 But according to
His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which
righteousness dwells. 14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these
things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,
15 and regard the patience of our Lord
as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom
given him, wrote to you, 16 as
also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some
things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do
also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 You therefore,
beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried
away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, 18
but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him
be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” A couple of comments on this passage and the
first is that these were the last words of Peter that were written in the NT,
for not long after he wrote these words he was crucified upside down, which
followed the crucifixion of his wife as tradition tells us. The other comment is about the word “element”
and this word in the Greek means “basic building block.” The basic building block of all the universe
is the atom and we know from Scripture that the Lord holds the world together,
but one day He will let loose of the world and it will all burn up in a very,
very large atomic explosion. I have been
watching a 26 part series on the last days of the Second World War and at the
end of that war two bombs were set off over Japan having the power of twenty
thousand tons of TNT and the heat from that blast was in the millions of
degrees. These are just small bombs
compared to what are now available, but all of the bombs will not produce the
power or heat of when the Lord un-creates the world, and as Peter says, knowing
this ought to spurn us on to good works.
Dr. Wiersbe states “But as we wait and hope, we must walk and work, for
we want to be found faithful when Jesus comes (Matt. 24:45-51). When we love His Word, we will also love His
appearing (2Tim. 4:6-8) and live like those who are ready to meet their Lord
(1John 2:28).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have
always been goal oriented, and I suppose that this is a good thing up unto a
point as long as it is not in a legalist way when it comes to spiritual
things. I am glade and at the same time
sad (good balance) when it comes to having my toes stepped on from God’s Word.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: I want to sincerely praise the Lord in times
of troubles and temptations.
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.
9/21/2012
9:54:19 AM
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