Psalm 119:127

Psalm 119:127

Therefore I love your commandments

above gold, above fine gold.

Men delight in things which break God's law. Our hearts are far too foolish and for too evil to follow God completely; it is only after total transformation that any can obey Christ. The world is full of sin (1 John 2:15-17). Men wander and are careless of God and others, and on this God must act (v. 126).

At God's righteous work, the righteous rejoice. All who know Him love Him, and all that He does and says is good. Man refuses to obey God because he views God's commandments as contemptible. But God's commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3). They are good. And those who follow God have greater joy by them than the world does by anything else.

Because we were made to know God, there is no greater joy than loving Him and being loved by Him. If we love Him, we will obey Him (John 14:15; 1 John 5:2), and because He loves us (Rom. 8:38-39) He will allow us to do so (2 Tim. 3:17; Eph. 2:10). This brings us great joy. God's commandments then surpass all possessions and prizes. His ways are desirable.

Psalm 119:103

Psalm 119:103

How sweet are your words to my taste,

sweeter than honey to my mouth.

This is one among many passages that exemplifies that all of life is directed Heaven-ward. God created this world and its fullness so that we would know and see Him. Our senses exist that we learn who God is and what He is like. Our smell is so that we better recognize the aroma of Christ (Eph. 5:2). We have eyes that we may see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8). Our ears were made so that w may hear His voice (Jer. 33:3; John 10:27). We have in our dermis the sense of touch so that we might know the texture of Christ's hand (John 10:28). And we taste that we savor the sweetness of God's word (Pss. 119:103; 34:8).

Left to himself, man has an utter distaste for spiritual things. God is to him not someone to be feared or worshiped but despised and loathed. The words of God mean nothing because to the sinner they are but a nonsense language impossible to be understood. It is an utter transformation that must take place before any of this changes, but oh when it does what a reversal it is! The gibberish becomes life; the wormwood becomes honey. That which could not be seen or tasted is now beheld and savored. The untouchable is now embraced, and joy is found. Oh! taste and see that the LORD is good - His word is like honey.

Psalm 119:81-82

Psalm 119:81-82

My soul longs for your salvation;

I hope in your word.

My eyes long for your promise;

I ask, "When will you comfort me?"

Our souls' greatest need is God. It is when we are in distress, feeling distant from Him, that we begin to realize our need of Him. When we lack of Him, we call to Him. It is for Him we long.

But on what premise can we rightly trust God? How do we know He is faithful? Our hope comes from His word. We know God stands because His truth stands; it is unbound perfection (v. 96). His word will never fall (Is. 40:8).

As Jacob persisted for a blessing (Gen. 32:26), so our prayers must also be persistent in times of adversity. Let us always be hoping in God's word and longing for His promise and comfort. May we never give up seeking Him. Rather, long for Him, for in seeking we shall find.

Psalm 119:71

Psalm 119:71

It is good for me that I was afflicted,

that I might learn your statutes.

It is at times the most difficult of circumstances that brings about the greatest rewards. When can hardship be counted as good? Only when it works together for good (Rom. 8:28). It is not the affliction itself but the result effected by the affliction. Even in David's greatest struggle, he would eventually look back and see the benefit.

It is an essential practice of our faith to never waste affliction. We have full assurance that God always works for our good. Although we may not always be able to see that good, we can always trust Yahweh because He is faithful. Through suffering we can see more of him and learn to better obey Him.

This is the center of why difficulties are good for us. If an event pulls us closer to our God and His word, the pain is worth the bearing. Knowing Christ is of surpassing value (Php. 3:8). All that we do and all we endure must be aimed at Him.

Psalm 119:64

Psalm 119:64

The earth, O LORD, is full of your steadfast love;

teach me your statutes.

Even the vilest of sinners taste the greatest thing in all of life. Every day is an undeserved blessing for God to man, and all "are without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). The love of God is inescapable; He has connected it to the world. All that we see we see only because of the love of God. Our senses exist to touch and taste and see (Ps. 34:8) and hear and smell God's love. The world exists so that this love could be placed in it.

The very placement of God's love is an incomprehensible act: the eternal has been bound with the created, the infinite has come to the finite. After Adam and Eve's rebellion, faith was necessary. But love was there in the perfection of Eden. One day faith will no longer be needed, but love will always have a place (1 Cor. 13:2, 8-13).

That God's love would be even on one part of this world is incredible, and yet His love is so great that it is everywhere. We can claim with full assurance no matter where we are, "You are there!" as David did (Ps. 139:7-12). No matter where we are, God is there, and with Him is His steadfast love.

Psalm 119:37

Psalm 119:37

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;

and give me life in your ways.

 

Only the life that pursues God's commandments is a life worth living. Saints are called to give up everything for the obedience of God. There is nothing in this world which has so great a value that it can be placed beside the gospel. All that is not according to the ways of God is worthless.

 

What are these worthless things? Evil things? Yes, but not only those. This world will pass away; everything worthless will burn up (2 Pet. 3:10). But treasures in Heaven will never pass away. What is done for the love of God and neighbor, for the care of orphan and widow, for the peace of enemy and friend, for the benefit of the Church - those will remain.

 

It is only walking in the ways of Yahweh that will allow us to do these things. Only by His grace can we remove our eyes from vain things and set them on Christ (Heb. 12:1-2). We are dead when left alone; God is the Giver of life. For more of Him, we must turn to Him. We must take time to turn off the TV and stop looking at our phones, and we must see Christ. And in seeing Christ, we will live.

Psalm 119:32

Psalm 119:32

I will run in the way of your commandments

when you enlarge my heart.

The aim of the life of a believer is to know God, and knowing God necessitates finding out who He is and what He wants. God's desire is that we obey Him; therefore, He gives us the resources to do so. Our obedience is dependent on His grace.

In order for us to obey God, the very core of our being must be expanded. Our knowledge and wisdom must grow. The source of our love and passion must overflow with yearning for the LORD.

A common mistake of modern Christianity is the mindset that thinking is noble and feeling is evil. What a tragic lie this is. The same God who created human thought established human emotions. He gave us taste so we would hunger for Him, joy so we would find our gladness in Him, and minds so we would think on Him.

With all that is in us, let us run after obedience to God (compare Heb. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 9:24). All energy, all passion, and all hope are to be set on Him. He enlarges these that we may seek Him more. Let us do so. Let us run.

Psalm 119:10

Psalm 119:10

With my whole heart I seek you;

let me not wander from your commandments.

Oftentimes a conservative response to emotionalism creates a tragic neglect of the passion in God's word. With what vigor are we to seek Christ? We are to seek Him with all that we are - our minds, our desires, our ears and eyes, our singing, our eating and drinking, our hopes, our plans, our wills, and our emotions. Consequently, the call to seek God is the call to stop seeking everything else. We must give up everything (Luke 14:33).

But who is this God we are called to so relentlessly follow? He is a Lawgiver and a righteous Judge. Even in following Him we fall short of His great glory (Rom. 3:23), so He justifies us on the merit of His Son (Rom. 3:24) who is the very radiance of God's glory (Heb. 1:3). We cannot seek Him unless He gives us a heart to seek Him, a total transformation, a change of the very core of our being.

God is desirable It is our sin that is deceptive. God alone is sovereign over who may seek Him. It is his work that changes our hearts and shepherds us to obey. While we are seeking, His grace is ever correcting.

Psalm 59:16

Psalm 59:16

But I will sing of your strength;

I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.

For you have been to me a fortress

and a refuge in the day of distress.

God is a refuge (Ps. 62:8), a stronghold for His own. No matter what the circumstances in a person's life, God's children can always run to their loving Father and find His faithfulness proven. No task is too difficult for God (Job 42:2; Dan. 4:35), and no earthly or heavenly power is so great as to dismantle His.

A great hope for God's people - indeed, the hope - is that God is strong. It is because of God's strength that He offers grace in redemption (1 Cor. 1:18) and in preservation (2 Cor. 12:9-10; Ps. 42:8). God's might is the very song we sing, our only prayer (Ps. 42:8). We are totally dependent on the power of God for all things (2 Pet. 1:3-11).

These precious promises are our full assurance. All we are and all we have hangs on the power of God, and God does not fail. Therefore we rejoice, we praise Him, we love Him, we seek. And we sing. From the dawn of each day, our hope is secure, so at every sunrise we have every reason among every creature to sing.

Psalm 118:1

Psalm 118:1

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever.

The cry of David's heart is the praise of the goodness of God. God's goodness demands our full thanksgiving; there is no other qualifier given. God is good; therefore we praise Him.

But why is God good? What is the determining factor that reveals His goodness? It is His steadfast love. God is supremely good because His kindness, love, and faithfulness are supremely enduring. Not even for a moment is His favor withheld from those who are kept in Christ. The love of the LORD is inexhaustible. No event, no power, no distance could remove or keep God's love from His children (Rom. 8:38-39).

This is ultimate peace. We are kept secure by the everlasting love of God (John 3:16-17; 10:27-28). And in light of this truth, we have nothing to fear (1 John 4:18); God is for us, and no one can stand against us (Rom. 8:31). Poverty cannot rob us of His love, nakedness cannot strip us of His care, fear cannot cause His kindness to flee, torture cannot twist us from His grasp, and burdens cannot fall us from His faithfulness. Unemployment, divorce, shattered families, lost friendships, cancer, and loss of loved ones are no match for God's love. Neither life nor death nor time itself can oppose it.

Amor vincit omnia.

Psalm 57:10

Psalm 57:10

For your steadfast love is great to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the clouds.

God's unfailing love is manifest to man in three mains ways: His goodness, His kindness, and His faithfulness. He is completely righteous, yet He is also merciful. God upholds His justice against sin, yet He is still forever loyal to His people. His divine wisdom in the truths of the Gospel is profound. "His understanding is unsearchable" (Is. 40:28).

These core attributes of God - His goodness, kindness, and faithfulness - are what lead us to praise Him internally and externally (see vv. 8-9). They are the deepest source of our hope and our motivation for evangelism. They cause the believer to sing, praise, and give thanks to God. They lead us to desire God's glory to be magnified over all (vv. 5, 11).

It is only when we stop treasuring God's lovingkindness that we sin. And yet it is then that the very same steadfast love draws us back to Him.

Psalm 116:15

Psalm 116:15

Precious in the sight of the LORD

is the death of his saints.

The most detestable thing to the heart, soul, and mind of a natural man is death. Because man is temporal-minded, there is no greater thing to fear. Death takes away all we have in life. It separates us from loved ones and pulls us from riches. It is truly the Grim Reaper.

But for the saints there is ultimate hope because God rescues from ultimate fear - the fear of death (Heb. 2:14-15). Christ's resurrection on our behalf eliminates any need of fear. His power over the grave is our hope of eternal life; death is merely a means to get there, so death is our gain (Php. 1:21). All in this life pales in comparison to the life to come (Pss. 63:3; 116:9).

It is fitting then for God to count the death of His people as a positive thing. It is not discouraging in His sight; it is not hopeless, dark, or terrible; it is not a tragedy. It is precious. And it is precious because death - spiritual then physical - is the gateway to life.

Psalm 115:8

Psalm 115:8

Those who make them become like them;

so do all who trust in them.

Man has sinful conflicts. He desires a god but craves control; wants the supernatural, but he must see it; he craves a deity but lusts after human form. And so man creates god in his own image. Men make god a smorgasbord of their personal tastes and so deny the true and living God.

These sinful pleasures reveal themselves in a variety of ways today. TVs, hand-held electronics, computers, musical instruments, books, houses, and cars all represent examples of inanimate idols. In and of themselves, they are harmless matter, but man makes gods out of them.

The tragic consequence of idolatry is becoming as dead as the idols worshiped. When man replaces the only true God with a god created in earthly image, he loses his spiritual senses (see vv. 5-7). His awareness of God and Heavenly things is replaced by a false sense of security in his idol. All spiritual life runs dry.

May the living and true God awaken our hearts and our senses to the reality of His eternal truth.

Psalm 54:4

Psalm 54:4

Behold, God is my helper;

the Lord is the upholder of my life.

Oftentimes when we most need something, we see that God is that something. There are two ways we can go about this. The incorrect way is to make God into who we want Him to be so that He can fill our needs. A right approach, however, is one in which we realize that we are far too weak to do anything about our circumstances but that God is not; He is the Remedy. Therefore in our time of need, He is the helper; in death He upholds us.

David could not get a firm grasp on this until his life was in danger (v. 3). He needed a Savior, and that Savior was the Lord. It was not merely God's help that David sought; it was God, the Helper, the Upholder.

We need not seek individual gifts. It is unsatisfying and foolish. Rather, at all times let us seek that Giver, the God who sees and satisfies. He will be an unfailing Refuge amid times of evil. He will bring comfort by His own goodness and faithfulness. He is the Upholder.

Psalm 53:1

Psalm  53:1

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;

there is none who does good.

There is no person in the world who truly believes there is no God - only those who say it. In order to convince themselves of God's nonexistence, fools much preach to themselves because God has permanently branded on every heart His existence. His truth is undeniable in every conscience (Ecc. 3:11). So man suppresses it (Rom. 1:18).

This suppression of truth leads to evil deeds. Man does not want to be judged, so he claims there is no Judge and does the evil his flesh desires. A sinful worldview leads to sinful actions. Ultimately all men are born prone to this. All sin is the denial of God's holiness, justice, mercy, and existence. And all have sinned.

Because man declares a corrupt message to his heart, the heart becomes evil, and deeds follow. The only remedy to this corrupt preaching of lies can be righteous preaching of the truth. And that truth is the Good News.

Psalm 52:1

Psalm 52:1

Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man?

The steadfast love of God endures all the day.

Because God loves what is good and just and merciful, evil is an affront to His love. Even mighty men and the world's rulers set themselves against God by taking part in what is wrong. They devise destruction. But their plans will fail.

God's love never ceases. It is never exhausted or spent. It is not vain effort or mortal combat. It cannot be minimized to a method or system or frame of time. His love is powerful, free, and boundless. It endures. And as long as His love endures, good will triumph over evil.

Psalm 111:2

Psalm 111:2

Great are the works of the LORD,

studied by all who delight in them.

Rebellion is the fruit of forgetting God's works (Ps. 106:7), but all who delight in God bring His works to mind, and those people are given hope (Lam. 3:21-23). A true delight in God's works is stimulated by, and leads to, a delight in God Himself, for if one loves the righteous acts He does he must also love the righteous God He is.

The works of God can never be studied to exhaustion because they are great. All who take interest in them contemplate what God has done, and thousands of books have been written to express such things. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are about God's work in life and language, yet even these cannot fully articulate the fullness of meaning and information God has put into the world, much less the universe. Works have been written on laughter, wood, the Grand Canyon, and aerodynamics, yet man still discovers more about these things. George Washington Carver spent endless hours studying the peanut. Thomas Edison tried a thousand different conductors for electricity. Fanny Crosby wrote over 9000 hymns and poems. Neil Armstrong touched the moon. The digits of π are infinite.

We only catch mere glimpses of God when we try to comprehend His works because His works are truly great.

Psalm 50:1

Psalm 50:1

The Mighty One, God the LORD,

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun to its setting.

God has supreme power over the universe in a way we cannot comprehend. Lest He command a star to shine, it does not shine - it cannot. Not only has God created the earth, but He also commands it. It has its existence because God speaks its existence. It spins and travels only to where God calls it.

The care and command of the Mighty One never rest. He is actively involved in His creation; this is the ultimate denial of Deism. He uses seemingly random and catastrophic acts of the weather to move people from one place to another (see vv. 4-5). "He causes His sun to rise, He sends the rain."1

God's activity in His world is unfathomable. His power none can grasp. "Did He speak the world into existence? Does matter exist apart from Him? Is it still here? Are you still here? Then He is still speaking."2

Notes

1. Jerry Bridges, Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts (Colorado Springs, CO: NAVPRESS, 1988), 102.

2. N.D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2009), 31.

Psalm 49:7, 15

Psalm 49:7, 15

Truly no man can ransom another, 

or give to God the price of his life...

But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,

for he will receive me.

Ransom of a life is far too high a cost for the resources of mortal man. An atheist once declared, "No deity will save us; we must save ourselves." Yet if we were forever separated from God's grace, none could ever be saved at all - by a friend or by himself. The cost is too great.

"But God" is the best news in the Bible. In these two words, hope begins. They mean that we are helpless but He is not, that we are sinful but that He did something about it. That man is not sinless as is God is terrible news. But that God is not sinful or helpless as is man is the greatest news ever.

In His mercy, God ransoms us from the power of death; in His grace, He gives us eternal life. WE are not left without a savior; we are given a Redeemer. Having been delivered from the dominion of darkness, we are accepted as children of light. No evils or powers can stand against us because God is for us (Rom. 8:31). We have been ransomed on Earth; we will be received in Heaven.

Psalm 108:4

Psalm 108:4

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples;

I will sing praises to you among the nations.

It is the duty and delight of man to give thanks to God. The LORD is the One who is worthy of our thanksgiving, for we exist in Him (Acts 17:28), and all good things come from Him (Jas. 1:17). Everything we possess is from Him (1 Cor. 4:7); therefore, He is the Benefactor of all gifts in all circumstances.

In the demands of what He has given, what He has promised, what He is working, what He has completed, and who He is, our assignment is to praise Him on the earth. For He is worthy, and He is worthy of nothing less than all of our thanksgiving and praise.

And our thanksgiving and praise to Him at all times should be specifically and intentionally focused on reaching the ears of all people in every place with the intent that God be glorified everywhere by everyone. He is the Creator and Giver of everything, and He is worthy.

Psalm 107:9

Psalm 107:9

For he satisfies the longing soul,

And the hungry soul he fills with good things.

All of creation is dependent on God for life and sustenance. Yet there are souls who long for more than living for temporary pleasure, and they are blessed because God fills them (Matt. 5:6). Again, there are souls who have been abused by the ills of this world and long for comfort. It is they that are met by God's grace (Matt. 5:4).

It is not as though God could not satisfy the rich with greater riches. Yet His mercy chooses those who feel they have no alternative but Him. They are in greatest position to be filled because they are most hungry. They are readily met by the Saviour because they desperately need the Saviour.

God is the One who mercifully gives to the poor and clothes the naked. He has no obligation and gives not out of compulsion but out of love. There is no one to aid or assist Him and nothing to add to His kindness. And therefore He is most glorified for His gracious gift, and those who are satisfied by His grace are truly satisfied in His grace. For God Himself is the true satisfaction for every man.

Psalm 106:7

Psalm 106:7

Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works;

they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,

but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

Time and time again in the Psalms, God's works are mentioned. They are contemplated much because the reason people rebel against God is because they forget His works, namely His love toward all He has made (Psalm 145:13, NIV84). When we sin, we deny God's saving work in the Gospel, forget the faithfulness of His promises, and ignore His love in creation.

The person with an obedient, humble heart meditates on God's works. He considers them (Psalm 8:3) and realizes his insignificance (Psalm 8:4). And at last, the faithful slave beholds God's love toward man (Psalm 8:5-8) and is led to heartfelt worship (Psalm 8:9).

Meditate on God's loving works, lest we forget and rebel.