Psalm 119 – 169-176

May my cry come before you, O Lord;

give me understanding according to your word.

This cry is the voice of the human spirit, now rising up to God whether things are good or bad – now I can remain in heartfelt communication with my Lord.  And my cry is – continue to teach me, so I can learn and grow in your Word – with Jesus, by the Spirit, with your word on my lips, speaking and living in your paths, righteous and sanctified and glad to act!

May my supplication come before you;

deliver me according to your promise.

My cry – my appeal – should repeatedly reach the throne of God, say simply ‘Sanctify me, save me, according to your promise, your word, your Son, the promised one, the living Lord Jesus!  Save me in him and in his spirit!’

May my lips overflow with praise,

for you teach me your decrees.

I want my mouth to be overfull and for words to pour out constantly, praising God for this, my prayer, is being answered now [sic.8.6.14, but also 7.11.16].  As I write this, as I read it again in the future, whether times are hard or easy, he is teaching me this pattern of life, his way of doing business.

May my tongue sing of your Word,

for all your commands are righteous.

I want to sing!  To be noisy in your word – for and through the Spirit of Jesus – because your way of ruling is proper, good, upright, effective and able to redeem your people.

May your hand be ready to help me,

for I have chosen your precepts.

I am going to need your help, Lord – but now I understand that to ask in the Spirit is to prophesy – to ‘speak into being’ – to ask with faith is to begin to receive.  We can’t have faith in the wrong things, because faith comes from the Spirit, so what we have been given holy faith to believe, we should pray wholeheartedly for and act upon.  This is to choose God’s precepts rather than our own way of living.

I long for your salvation, O lord,

and your law is my delight.

Being saved is so exciting!  I want to run on in it – because your words and ways fill me with gladness and excitement.

Let me live that I may praise you

and may your laws sustain me.

Yes – this is life to the full – to worship in Spirit and Truth – in understanding of the real state of affairs – and sustained by God’s living law, by the Spirit of Jesus living in us as his word, showing, explaining, drawing our attention.

I have strayed like a lost sheep.  Seek your servant

for I have not forgotten your commands.

And this is the power of God’s law – I strayed – I spent all this time trying to do it – but I have not forgotten your commands because they have continually acted upon me.  As long as God seeks me, holding me on the path through his law, through his Word, his command is to follow.  His command is impossible to resist – his command is the person of Jesus – his person is the greatest command, commanding us to know him by his very presence in the world he created.

Psalm 119 145-152

I call with all my heart; answer me , O Lord,

and I will obey your decrees.

Like Hannah, calling from her sorrow and the Lord speaking in sorrow to Samuel regarding Eli’s sons.  I call – you answer – because we are in a conversation.  This isn’t a deal – ‘I will do what you say if I can hear you say it’, but ‘I will obey your will because I have heard your voice and hearing it shows me how to respond.

I call out to you; save me

and I will keep your statutes.

My cries result in salvation – Romans 10:10 teaches that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved – this is living the rich, full life and enjoying your daily salvation – continually confessing that Jesus, the saviour, is one with the Father, and that the Father is a saving God.  To do this is to be obedient in the greatest matter, keeping the first statute of all statutes.

I will rise before dawn and cry for help,

I have put my hope in your word.

My existing hope does not lead me to isolation – I cry for help regularly – daily – for the day to come.  Your word is living, so I can hope in it with my spirit as much as my mind – in fact, often my spirit should be better equipped to deal with a day than my mind, because even if I do not know what is coming, I have confident faith of my Father’s provision.

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night,

that I may meditate on your promises.

And my spiritual eyes even in sleep!  Chewing and digesting the goodness of this diet means sometimes staying awake to study, pray and experience God’s promises being fulfilled.

Hear my voice in accordance with your love;

preserve my life, O Lord, according to your laws.

Perfectly reciprocal relationship here: God longs to hear our voice – this is what he loves – and he desires to preserve us – his laws actually legislate for long and satisfying life.  So when we ask him for these, he will fulfill our requests.

Those who devise wicked schemes are near,

but they are far from your law.

It is distinct and plain, isn’t it?  Sometimes people planning wicked things – and there is not righteous thing outside God’s word and promise in Christ Jesus – are very near by us, in our family, or physically near, even encroaching on us.  But their distance from the correct path means that we shall always leave them behind as we continue on our walk to Jerusalem.  Their schemes are to preserve themselves or improve their lot: our call is to be changed by remaining in Christ’s company.

Yet you are near, O Lord,

and all your commands are true.

Staying close to his word is close to him and the words he says become more and more true as we try them and live them.  Amen!

Long ago I learned from your statutes

that you established them to last forever.

Yes – as a child I knew that your Word is eternal – and now I increasingly know with experience and am beginning to know that lasting forever is a joyous life you have prepared for me too.

Verses 17-24

Do good to your servant,

and I will live.

The agency and the initiative in our relationship with God all belongs to him.  All life is dependent upon God doing good to us.  To live in reality is to obey God.  His continued decision to support us, to remain true to his promises, to continue sustaining the created world, lays down the physical and spiritual laws of the universe.  We all obey these words whether we acknowledge it or not!  His goodness in doing this causes us to live – but to live a deep and real life – a living life, not a death-in-life, we choose to acknowledge his truth: that he does good to his servant and this itself is the best life we can enjoy.

Open my eyes that I may see

wonderful things in your law!

Again, this is dependent upon God’s action – he must open our eyes before we see with understanding.  The wonderful things are already there in God’s law – he does not put them there new for us, or create fancy ideas for our benefit!  Can you imagine how Jesus must have prayed this scripture?  How hungry he was to receive his Father’s wonderful revelation when reading and studying scripture?  This is the attitude we should have!

I am a stranger on earth;

do not hide your commands from me.

 Like walker, travelling through a strange part of the country, remaining on one path, we can feel this at times.  Certainly Jesus must have.  To feel separate from the ways of other people, looking for direction when we speak a different language to so many of the inhabitants!  Nor are we owners in our own land – even as stewards the world can be so strange to us.  We are not in possession of the earth but visitors, here and then gone, requiring direction and help.  What better help than God’s commands and his revelation of their purposes, meanings and effects?

My soul is consumed with longing

for your laws at all times.

We may feel this in our body or even our mind or even our emotions – but know this: once we have decided to follow Jesus, a longing for God will possess your soul and nothing else will ever satisfy you in your spirit!  This hunger to know God’s ‘laws’ is exactly what the psalmist is struggling to understand as he worships and expresses himself.  The different phrases he uses – law, precept, word, command, decree, statues – are his attempts to lasso whatever it is that God speaks that we long for so much – his activity in our lives, whether we read it in scripture, see it in Jesus’ example, notice it in the world, hear it from a brother or sister, whether it is his instruction, his warning, his promise, his description, his comfort, his chiding, his correction or his blessing.

You rebuke the arrogant,

who are cursed and stray from your commands.

Yes, this is the nature of God’s character: he himself, in his gentleness and his merciful exercise of his power, is a rebuke to anyone and any part of ourselves characterised by arrogance: he alone acts with propriety and an appropriate sense of self-importance!  To stray from his commands – well, that is a curse upon oneself!  To be disobedient is to invite all manner of suffering.  So the curse and the rebuke of the arrogant is that they cannot remain in obedience to God.

Remove from me scorn and contempt,

for I keep your statutes. 

We do not have to move from where God has set us – rather, the scorn and contempt of the world is removed from us.  Once again, this is God’s action rather than our own.  Also the inner scorn and self-criticism will be removed if we confess to ourselves that our will is made subject to God.  If, as we say this, we feel our conscience convict us, then we act upon it until we can speak with a clear conscience.  What a gift the conscience is, to keep us in purity and joy.

Though rulers sit together and slander me,

your servant will meditate on your decrees.

So this meditation now, reading these words of God and allowing them to renew you mind and to soften your heart, this is the appropriate reaction and the right response to pressure from the slanderous authorities of the world.  When things get tough and people look badly at you, consider the things that God has said and done and what it means for you.

Your statutes are my delight;

they are my counsellors.

We can go to God’s Word for advice, since it is much older and wiser than us, also fresher and more alive.  Good advice comes from the law, and the law lives in Jesus and Jesus dwells in us by the Holy Spirit.  Was ever a King or Director privileged to have such good advice as we are given, from the very voice of God?  Hallelujah indeed!

Verses 9-16

How can a young man keep his way pure?

By living according to your word.

 This questions is worthy of a considerable prayer before God.  It is relevant to an individual, but also to the church – it is vital that young people find the way of purity and holiness!  With it, their spiritual growth and the prospering of the kingdom is sure.  Without it… stagnation, confusion and loss.  What is the one thing that allows a person to remain separate and holy and unlike the world?  It really is this simple – a life that is aligned to the Word of God.  And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…  If we want to align ourselves with the Word of God, we welcome Jesus into our lives, by his Holy Spirit, whom he promised will teach us all things and remind us of his Word – the words that we hear which are not from Jesus but from the Father and of the Father.  And the Gospels and the law and the prophets and the letters and every part of scripture, in pointing to the Word, Jesus Christ, is the way we are to live.

I seek you with all of my heart;

do not let me stray from your commands.

 The great truth that God will allow us to live as Jesus does – in unity with him – should motivate us to search whole-heartedly for the one who loves us.  Forgive us, Lord, when these words are not true and we give other things place in our hearts – but also, Lord, cut away that hard and selfish and stupid heart and give us the heart of flesh and tenderness that longs for you!  For God to ‘not let’ us to stray, he must have a firm grip on us – we must allow him to grasp us tightly with his hand – we must be given over to him and willing to feel the uncomfortable proximity of his clutch.  Only if we change ourselves to allow this vast and direct invasion of our privacy will God be able to be God in us.

I have hidden your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you.

Sin and evil comes out of the heart, as Jesus taught us – but replace an earthly heart with an eternal, heavenly one, and sin will have no place to be rooted.  It cannot survive in the soil of the new kingdom – temptation might attract us, but it will wither, if our heart is given over.  How to keep giving over the heart to God?  The soil must be tilled regularly, and fertilised.  The Word of God – his voice to us – his plan, his intention, as revealed in Scripture and as lived in Jesus – that is harrow that breaks the soil and the fertiliser that makes the heart ready to produce good crops of heavenly abundance.

Praise be to you, O Lord,

teach me your decrees.

These two statements are always intertwined.  Worship and praise always implicates a desire to know more of God – to experience and understand more – which is exactly his method of teaching: exposure to himself.  If we pray this, then we are asking for God’s presence in our lives, because this is how he gives us eyes to see and a ready heart.  His decrees – his eternal judgements and laws – are recorded in Scripture – and if we are ready to see them, we will see the results of them all around us in the world.  Praise to God as the Creator will allow our eyes to see his law in nature.  Praise to God the Saviour will allow our eyes to see his law in people, whom he saves and recreates.

With my lips I recount

all the laws that come from your mouth.

In the Bible we can count and learn all the laws God has given – to individuals, to nations, to peoples and to all of us.  We can also recount his instructions to people, one by one, which are the impression of his law of love and justice in that circumstance.  What better thing to dwell upon and learn?

I rejoice in following your statutes

as one rejoices in great riches.

And yes, this is great wealth, isn’t it?  We do not possess God’s statutes – his principles – in the manner of ownership; we follow them.  This leaves us free and responsible to choose our actions and express ourselves.  Truly, we have cause to rejoice when we realise the privilege it is to serve a good and kind God.   This following allows us to grow – for what we see one day of God’s instruction will be deepened the next day, and the next, and the next.  It also allows us to be surprised!

I meditate on your precepts

and consider your ways.

God’s principles and his actions are well worth our meditation – our deepest degree of reflection and thought.  If we simply had God’s law and no record of his miraculous intervention in our world, we could too easily believe that it was in our power to fulfil the law and justify ourselves.  If we simply had record of God’s actions in time, to the Jewish people or to anyone else, and no revelation of his law, we would have no responsibility to join his way.  But as it is, the Word gives us both, in Scripture and in the person of Jesus, so it is our duty to consider both, and to consider them together.

I delight in your decrees,

I will not neglect your word.

All of God’s utterances bring us joy, because he is both good and just, and we are right to delight in them like people delighting in their leisure and their wealth and their family and their freedom.  God’s decrees – his words to all the world – are for us to delight in.  How then can we desire anything else?  We can honestly say that we will not neglect his word because Jesus has promised to be always with us, and if at times we find it hard to motivate ourselves to study and learn Scripture, or hard to pray and feel his presence, or hard to hear the prophetic guiding voice of the Spirit, or hard to follow through on what we mean to do, we will not neglect the word as long as we praise God and desire to live in him.  Why?  Because this does not depend on us – it depends on his desire to be with us.