SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/4/2012 9:31:00 AM
My
Worship Time Focus: Ending Well
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 119:33-40
Message of the verses: We will be looking at the fifth section of
Psalm 119 today as we journey through this longest chapter in the entire Bible
remembering that in the original Hebrew language each of the verses I n this
section begins with the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and in this
section that is “He.”
“He”—Ending
Well (vv. 33-40): “33 He. Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your
statutes, And I shall
observe it to the end. 34 Give me understanding, that I may observe Your
law And keep it with all my heart.
35 Make me walk in the path of Your
commandments, For I delight in it. 36 Incline my heart to Your testimonies And not to dishonest
gain.
37 Turn away my eyes from looking at
vanity, And revive me
in Your ways.
38 Establish Your word to Your servant, As
that which produces reverence for You.
39 Turn away my reproach which I dread, For
Your ordinances are good.
40 Behold, I long for Your precepts; Revive me through Your
righteousness.”
We
can see from verse 33 that it was the desire of the psalmist to end well, and
there are examples in Scripture of those who began and ended well. We read these words in 2Timothy 4:6-8
concerning the apostle Paul: “6 For I am
already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has
come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept
the faith; 8 in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only
to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” In the gospel of John we read that Jesus
finished well too as we will see from John 17:4, “"I glorified You on the
earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.’”
There
are those we can think of in the Scriptures that did not finish well, but they
all started well and a good beginning should lead to a good ending. Think about the following who did not finish
well, Lot, Samson, King Saul, Ahithophel, and Demas.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “The psalmist wanted to end well (v. 33), but ending well is the
consequence of living well. What are the
essentials for a consistent life that ends well?”
Learning
(vv.33-34): “33 He. Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your
statutes, And I shall
observe it to the end. 34 Give me understanding, that I may observe Your
law And keep it with all my heart.”
Our
learning must begin by praying for spiritual enlightenment so that we can have
an understanding of what is in the Word of God.
This means more than just reading it for we are to learn what is in it
by memorizing parts of it and then meditating on what we have memorized. The Word of God is alive and it is sharper
than any two edged sword, and we want it to become alive in our hearts so that
we will know what it takes to please our heavenly Father. Just as children learn how to understand what
makes their parents happy we need to learn what makes our Father happy and this
means we must learn about His character which is found in the pages of
Scripture. We need inner illumination to
discover what it means to do this and that begins with “Teach me” but it must
be balanced with “Give me understanding.”
Both of these must lead to obedience.
Notice the verses listed above about Jesus’ ending and Paul’s ending.
Obeying
(v. 35: “ 35 Make me walk in the path of Your
commandments, For I delight in it.”
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “What we learn with our mind and apprehend with our heart must
motivate the will to do what God commands.
But our obedience cannot be that of a slave obeying a master in order to
avoid discipline. It must be the obedience of a
grateful child who delights to please his or her parents.”
We
are to do the will of our Father from our hearts “not by way of eyeservice, as
men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,
(Eph. 6:6).” Psalm 40:8 says, ‘”I
delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.’” John 8:29 says “"And He who sent Me is
with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing
to Him.’” John 7:17 teaches us that if
we want to know God’s truth, we must be willing to obey God’s will, “"If
anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is
of God or whether I speak from Myself.”
Delighting
(vv. 36-37): “36 Incline my
heart to Your testimonies And not to dishonest gain. 37 Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity,
And revive me in Your ways.”
The
apostle John writes something similar in 1 John “15 Love not the world, neither the things that are
in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the
world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever.” (AV)
In both
of these passages we see the word “eyes” and what we look at is important to
what we delight in. If we keep our eyes
and mind on the things of the Lord and delight in them then when temptation
comes we will focus on the Word of God like the Lord Jesus did in Matthew
chapter four and be able to overcome the temptation.
In the
book of Genesis we see that Abraham looked for the heavenly city and ended well
while Lot looked at Sodom and ended badly.
Dr Wiersbe says “What the heart loves and desires, the eyes will
see. To have one eye on the world and
the other on the Word is to be double-minded, and God does not bless
double-minded people (James 1:5-8).”
Fearing (vv. 38-39): “38 Establish Your word to Your servant, As
that which produces reverence for You.
39 Turn away my reproach which I dread, For Your ordinances are good.”
When
we fear the Lord that fears conquers all other fear, but when we fear man we
are in bondage and defeat, “25 The fear of man brings a snare, But he who trusts
in the LORD will be exalted (Pr. 29:25)” As we read through this psalm we see
that the psalmist was not afraid of his enemies, but afraid of displeasing His
Lord, something that is a good lesson to learn.
We are to do as the psalmist and trust the promises of the Lord and then
allow the Lord to take care of our enemies as the psalmist did. Earlier this morning I was reading a part of
a chapter on prayer, prayer in the life of D. L. Moody and Moody’s prayer life
was a life of trusting in the Lord for the answers to the things that came his
way. Moody is a man that I would like to
learn from and be like for he was a man that was used by the Lord and even
after his death in 1899 is still being used by the Lord all around the world.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “Our faith is tested by the promises of God and our faithfulness
is tested by the precepts of God, and both are important.”
Longing
(v. 40): “ 40 Behold, I long for Your precepts; Revive me through Your
righteousness.”
What
the psalmist was longing for is recorded in this psalm as he longed for a deep
understanding of God’s truth along with the day when God’s salvation would be
revealed “I long for Your salvation, O LORD, And Your law is my delight (V.
174).” Paul also longed for this as we
read the following in Romans 8:18-23: “18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious
longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For
the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who
subjected it, in hope 21 that the
creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the
freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole
creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And
not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit,
even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as
sons, the redemption of our body.”
As
the psalmist had his longings fulfilled with the Word of God so we too can do
this.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I have been looking forward to studying this
psalm for a long time and the reason is that it speaks about the Word of God,
something I desire to learn more about and this psalm seems to be a key in a
better understand of God’s Word.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
Continue to abide in the Vine, to study God’s Word and to trust God in
all the circumstances of life.
Memory verses for the week: 1Cor. 13:1-2
1.
If I speak with the tongues of men and
angles, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging
symbol. 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.
9/4/2012 10:35:50 AM
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