SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/18/2012 8:46:08 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: In God We Trust
Bible Reading &
Meditation
Reference:
Psalm 119:137-144
Message
of the verses: “137 Tsadhe.
Righteous are You, O LORD, And upright are Your judgments. 138 You have
commanded Your testimonies in righteousness And exceeding faithfulness. 139 My
zeal has consumed me, Because my adversaries have forgotten Your words. 140
Your word is very pure, Therefore Your servant loves it. 141 I am small and
despised, Yet I do not forget Your precepts. 142 Your righteousness is an
everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth. 143 Trouble and anguish have
come upon me, Yet Your commandments are my delight. 144 Your testimonies are
righteous forever; Give me understanding that I may live.”
Romans
10:17 is a verse that is used many times to tell others about the way to be
saved as it is in what some call the “Romans Road to Salvation,” but as we look
more closely at Romans 10:17 we can see that if believers will follow the words
of this verse our faith will be increased, “So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God.” Our
faith in increased by reading, hearing, and living out the Word of God. The Bible speaks of those with no faith,
little faith, or great faith, and faith the size of a mustard seed. Just as there is life in a mustard seed even
though it is very small, so there is life in God’s Word. Dr. Wiersbe ends his introductory commentary
on this section with these words, “The message of this section of the psalm is
that you can depend on the Word of God so—have faith.”
God’s Word is Trustworthy no Matter What
People do (vv. 137-139): “Righteous
are You, O LORD, And upright are Your judgments. 138 You have commanded Your
testimonies in righteousness And exceeding faithfulness. 139 My zeal has
consumed me, Because my
adversaries have forgotten Your words.”
We can see discouragement in the
psalmist as although he has a zeal for the Word of God, not all people have this
zeal. He has told others to trust in the
Word, but many have not and this is the same today as it was in the psalmist
day. Jesus Christ, the living Word of
God also had a zeal for not only the Word but the temple as we see in Psalm
69:9 and in John 2:17, for because of His zeal He cleansed the temple.
A
couple of years ago I was in the hospital because I had trouble with kidney
stones and a doctor who had cared for this problem before ended up taking care
of it again, and this was through some circumstances that I felt were arranged
by the Lord and so I took the time to write a letter to him and in that letter
I explained to him why I thought that our paths had crossed again, and also
told him the story of how I came to know the Lord. Yesterday I went to see him again, and
things did not work out the way that I hoped they would for he did not seem to
remember much about the letter that I gave to him and I have been praying for
him, and still do for a very long time.
This was a great discouragement to me and so I can relate to the
psalmist from this section, but I must remember like the psalmist that God will
use His Word. I can also remember that
those today who are making fun of the Word of God will someday die, their books
will forgotten but the Word of God will still be here.
God’s Word is Trustworthy no Matter What
People Say (vv. 14—141): “140 Your
word is very pure, Therefore Your servant loves it. 141 I am small and
despised, Yet I do not forget Your precepts.”
The
psalmist thinks that he is small and despised, but the words that he has
written are a part of the Word of God and all those who have despised him are
long gone, but he lives on in heaven with the rest of the saints. When Jesus was talking to some of the
Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead He told them
about the passage when God was speaking to Moses at the burning bush and God
identified Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, therefore Jesus
told the Sadducees that God was the God of the living not the dead and so from
that section we can be assured that all of the saints who have died before us
are now alive in heaven waiting for their glorious bodies, but those who
despised the psalmist and God’s Word will someday be in the fires of hell,
after the Great White Throne Judgment.
The
Word of God has been tested by those who are believers and will never fail us,
even though at times we are like the psalmist and become discouraged, but we
can trust in the Word of God as he did.
God is Trustworthy Regardless of how you
feel (vv. 142-143): “142 Your
righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth. 143
Trouble and anguish have come upon me, Yet Your commandments are my delight.”
Verse 142 says that God’s Word is
truth as Jesus also says this in John 17:17, “’Sanctify them in the truth; Your
word is truth.’” Jesus states in John
14:6 that He is the Truth, “Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the
truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” 1John 5:6 states that the Spirit is
Truth: “This is the One who came by
water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and
with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the
truth.” Dr. Wiersbe states “The Spirit
of truth wrote the Word of truth and that Word reveals the Son of God. When your feelings deceive you into
concluding that it is not worth it to serve the Lord, immediately turn to the
Scriptures and delight in your Lord.”
God’s Word is Trustworthy no Matter how
Long you live (v. 144): “144 Your
testimonies are righteous forever; Give me understanding that I may live.”
The
psalmist says that the Word of God will live on forever, and this is not the
first time he has stated that, “Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven
(v.89).” “The sum of Your word is truth,
And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting (160).”
As
believers we are to build our life on the Word of God as Jesus explains at the
end of His Sermon on the Mount, “24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words
of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on
the rock. 25 “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and
slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on
the rock. 26 “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them,
will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 “The rain fell,
and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it
fell-and great was its fall." 28 When Jesus had finished these words, the
crowds were amazed at His teaching; 29 for He was teaching them as one having
authority, and not as their scribes (Matthew 7:24-29).” John writes these words in 1 John 2:17: “The world is passing away, and also its
lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
We
know that the Bible teaches us that our life is just a breath or we are like
the flowers in the fields which are here today, but gone tomorrow, and so we
must conclude that it is not so much the quantity of our life that is important
but the quality of our life. Jesus lived
33 years on this earth, and only three of those years were in ministry, “yet He
accomplished a word that is eternal.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The psalmist teaches us throughout this
wonderful psalm the importance of God’s Word and how we are to study it,
memorize it, meditate upon it, and to understand the importance of it even in
times when we are troubled by either outside or inside circumstances. I need to pay more attention to God’s Word.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: Two things that I have thought about for a
long time that come from the Word of God and that is to be content, and also to
abide in the Vine.
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 to
move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 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, endures all things.
9/18/2012
10:15:10 AM
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