SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/22/2012 7:49:58 AM
My
Worship Time Focus:
Hear My Prayer
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Psalm 119:169-176
Message of the verses: “169 Tav. Let my cry come before You, O LORD;
Give me understanding according to Your word. 170 Let my supplication come
before You; Deliver me according to Your word.
171 Let my lips utter praise, For You teach me Your statutes. 172 Let my tongue sing of Your word, For all
Your commandments are righteousness. 173
Let Your hand be ready to help me, For I have chosen Your precepts. 174 I long
for Your salvation, O LORD, And Your law is my delight. 175 Let my soul live that it may praise You,
And let Your ordinances help me. 176 I
have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your
commandments.”
We
began looking as Psalm 119 on the 30th of August and now it is the
22nd of September and we begin the last eight verses of this
wonderful psalm. It seems to me that
much of this Psalm was a prayer that the psalmist has written and in today’s
section we will look at the ending of this psalm that Dr. Wiersbe has described
as hearing the prayer of the psalmist and in this section we see the word
“your” or “Thy” (KJV) in all of the verses with the exception of verse
174. He points out that this often
repeated word will help us understand the requests that the psalmist is making.
I Need Your Word (vv. 169-172): ““169 Tav. Let my cry come before You, O
LORD; Give me understanding according to Your word. 170 Let my supplication
come before You; Deliver me according to Your word. 171 Let my lips utter praise, For You teach
me Your statutes. 172 Let my tongue sing
of Your word, For all Your commandments are righteousness.”
As believer’s we need to be in the Word of God each
and every day so that we can continue to learn from it. The writer of the book of Hebrews has this to
say about the Word of God, “For the Word that God speaks is alive and active; it
cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword: it strikes through to the place
where soul and spirit meet, to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being: it
examines the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart (Hebrews 4:12
Phillips).” Don’t believe any person
who states that he knows the Word of God from cover to cover, for we will be
spending eternity learning from His Word.
I once heard of a person who was very faithful in reading and studying
the Word of God each day, and a person that he knew asked him why it was that
he studied the Word of God each day for he could not possibly remember all that
he was learning each day. He replied to
him that six months ago he did not remember what his wife had fixed him for
supper, but he did remember that that food had sustained him for that day and
so did the Word of God sustain him for that day too.
We
see in this section that the psalmist is asking for understanding and
deliverance in this section for just as Jesus stated in John 8:32 that the
truth would set a person free, the psalmist wanted to be set free by the truth. We can see that once the psalmist understood
the statutes of God that he began to praise him, and from this we understand
that study and worship go together. Paul
gives us an example of this from his letter to the Romans, for after Paul
discussed the wonderful decrees of the Lord that are found in chapters 9-11 he
writes the following in praise to the Lord, “33 I stand amazed at the
fathomless wealth of God’s wisdom and God’s knowledge. How could man ever
understand his reasons for action, or explain his methods of working? 34 For:
Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? 35 Or who
hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? 36 For
everything began with him, continues its existence because of him, and ends in
him. To him be the glory forever, amen (Romans 11:33-36 Phillips).”
I Need Your Hand (v. 173): “173 Let Your hand be ready to help me, For I
have chosen Your precepts.”
This is the only time that the psalmist spoke of
God’s hand in this psalm but in other psalms it is used to help us understand
who God is. The worthless idols that man
worshiped in the OT times, and even today have hands, but they do not move,
while the Lord is Spirit and in reality does not have hands but He does move on
our behalf. In Psalm 95:7 we read “For
He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.” Jesus used this image in the following verses
from John’s Gospel, “27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and
no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29
"My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no
one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand (John 10:27-28).”
I Need Your Salvation (v. 175): “174 I long for Your salvation, O LORD, And
Your law is my delight.”
The psalmist is speaking of salvation from his
enemies in this verse, but we did learn about the salvation that is provided
for us earlier in verse 166, “I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, And do Your
commandments.” Our ultimate salvation
comes through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but we can
be delivered from different difficult situations from the Lord including being
harassed by Satan.
I need Your Help (v. 175): “175 Let my soul live that it may praise You,
And let Your ordinances help me.”
I can truly concur with the psalmist in this verse,
asking for His Word to help me through difficult situations that I find myself
in.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes the following to help us understand this section, “God’s hand
can help us (v. 173), but so can God’s judgments. ‘Judgments’ is a synonym for the Word of God,
but it can also refer to the workings of God’s providence in this world (105:7;
Rom. 11:33). Of course, the two go
together, because God always obeys His own Word when He works in this
world. God helps us as He arranges the
affairs of this world and of our lives, for there are no accidents in the life
of the believer—only appointments. Our
Father watches over us and accomplishes His will (23:3; John 10:4; Rom. 8:28).”
I am Your Servant (v. 176): “176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep;
seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments.”
I can see the grace of God in this section for His
Word says in Isaiah 53, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has
turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall
on Him.” (Isa 53:6) The psalmist was a believer and I think that
he was saying that there were times when he still went astray like the sheep
that is in the parable of the “lost sheep” from Luke’s Gospel.
Dr.
Wiersbe concludes his commentary on this verse and the entire psalm by writing
“He opened the psalm with a benediction (v. 1), but he closed it with a
warning, and both are important to the balanced Christian life. God gave us promises and assurances so we
will not despair, but He gave us warnings that we might not presume. He was still the servant of God not the
servant of sin, and he still remembered God’s Word, so he would not stray for
long. The Good Shepherd would find him
and lead him back to the fold. He would
anoint his wounds with healing oil and give him a long refreshing drink of
water (23:5).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The Word of God is what this psalm is all
about and it encourages me to stay in the Word in order to find my marching
orders from the Lord. Paul writes in the
book of Ephesians that a Pastor is to equip the saints to do the work of the
Lord, and the way that he does that is by teaching and preaching the whole
counsel of God.
Verse 176 is a fitting end of this psalm as it
teaches me that the Lord loves me so much that he will come and get me when I
stray.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to stay or remain in the Vine, and
continue to be taught contentment so that I can learn contentment.
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 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.
9/22/2012 9:14:59 AM
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