WEDNESDAY 26th
Psalm 119:17-24 (ESV) – Section Three – Hebrew – GIMEL
‘Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.
I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones, who wander from your commandments.
Take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counsellors.
Verse 20 – ‘My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.’
O dear this verse contains that word we probably all disliked hearing when we were growing up. RULES! Boundaries that were set up and if we didn’t operate within them, then we were in trouble!
Boundaries that were set up in the home, and O how much we hated some of them! Boundaries set up in the school, these were the worst as far as I was concerned! Boundaries within the workplace, boundaries, boundaries and more! But as we look back, we see that the rules served a purpose and as we became older and had our own families, we suddenly found that we also put boundaries in place, we may have despised them growing up, but suddenly we see the need for them!
God has always set boundaries; he has given the rules and the reason for it is because he knows best! Adam and Eve were given boundaries, if they overstepped them then look out, expect trouble and they did, they crossed the line and the world has been in trouble ever since and as a result God had to place more boundaries, more rules, more instructions, more commandments, call them whatever you wish, but they have been given for a reason, because God knows best, he knows what is good for us and he knows what will be bad for us. He knows that with the right rules put in place and with our obedience toward them all will go well. (119:39 ‘for your rules are good’)
It was to the Children of Israel God said ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.’ So long as the Children of Israel did as God commanded it went well. The psalmist also seems to have learned the lesson that God has given the rules to mankind for his good, and he was consumed with a longing for the rules, he wanted to be sure that he did that which was right in the eyes of God, he wanted that his life was ordered in a way he would know God’s blessing.
We too, need to be consumed with a desire for the rules of the Lord God, we should have a deep desire to live how he wants us to live, according to the pattern found in his word so that who we are and what we do will always be acceptable in his sight.