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 wha 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 2Cor. 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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