Tag: psalm

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Verses 73-80

Your hands made me and formed me;

Give me understanding to learn your commands.

From the same hands come creation and training, both acts of love.  Initially we are made – and well-made – but spiritually unformed – and then formed by the growth of understanding as we learn to obey God and follow his law.  His chosen method of explaining – his Spirit – is required to learn about his laws.  That is unavoidable.  To know of his commands is only the beginning, since we are designed to relate to them and to relate to him through them.

May those who fear you rejoice when they see me,

For I have put my hope in your word.

A ruler or king can be trusted when he hopes in God, which is enacted when he looks for goodness in God’s utterance.  People around don’t simply receive pleasure but joy!

I know, O Lord, that your laws are righteous

And in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

We can have factual knowledge and know, without any experience, that God is good, but to be faithful to his promise to teach us, God will judge us in the law – and then in the new law.  He couldn’t leave us thinking we knew him and his ways when we had never been tested or had opportunity to depend on him.  So Jesus prays in the garden “Your faithfulness to your own plan requires this suffering.”

Let your compassion come to me that I may live

For your law is my delight.

Without his compassion, I would surely die, but I seek your compassion because I love your law – because I love your living word.  I know what your compassion is like and look for it where it is likely to be found.

May the arrogant be put to shame for wronging me without cause;

But I will meditate on your precepts.

The causeless actions of the arrogant bring more actions – caused ones and reasoned ones.  So God repays chaos with order, deceit with truth, evil with good.  But meditation is not a reaction to the arrogant.  It is separate, quiet, peaceful.  Arrogant actions are slander, treating people unjustly and describing them inaccurately.  Meditating on God’s precepts stops this in us.

May those who fear you turn to me,

Those who understand your statutes.

Everyone who really knows God’s way of business will be drawn to holy kings, good leaders and true servants of the Gospel.  Our fear of God allows us to relate to people who have ordered their life that way.

May my heart be blameless towards your decrees

That I might not be put to shame.

How?  My heart must be revived and renewed.  I must have learnt your word – not simply know it or know about it, but I must have been taught by it, changed by it.  I must be living a new life – I must be redeemed and sealed by the Holy Spirit – for that is the blamelessness promised to us, free of condemnation and living within the law.

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Verses 65-72

Do good to your servant

According to your word, O Lord.

He will only do good, since for God to do is to do good.  We can have no other expectation: he only does good and he only does it well.  Scripture is our witness to this, that he has done good since the very beginning and will continue to do good endlessly.  Scripture is to be trusted since scripture tells us of our Saviour – which no-one else and nothing else does.  So we should seek those books and points of view that reinforce our understanding and show us God being good.  And when we make ourselves his servant, this inevitable good is promised to us and his breathed Spirit confirms it.

Teach me knowledge and good judgement

for  believe in your commands. 

Faith is the key here: believing God’s word to be good makes us teachable.  Without an attitude of wonder and gratitude, we won’t ever gain understanding. Here knowledge and good judgement are inescapably paired – for without one another, each is senseless.  We are called not simply to know what is right but to exercise judgement and to use our knowledge to live differently, and so prove our faith, as James encourages.  This is God’s teaching style: first he gives us faith to believe him, then he gives us better and truer information and the opportunity to embed it by using it.  The more we follow this pattern, the more drastic the change in our life.

Before I was afflicted I went astray

But now I obey your word.

Yes indeed – conviction, shame and reshaping are God’s tools.  He does not want us astray – better afflicted with grief or suffering and on the correct path than ignorant and in bliss- stupid bliss.  Better the daily challenge to our self!  Lord, how I thank you for this time – this rest. Remain in me, O Lord, so that I may continue to find rest.

You are good and what you do is good;

Teach me your decrees.

Here is the proof!  We know God is good and free from imperfection, because we see his goodness in the things he does.  His actions are essential to him – unsurprising (once you know him well) – suited – fitting – proper – and he must act to be true to himself.  He is, after all, the Living God.  And he wants us to mirror this integrity. O God, that my deeds befitted what you have made me!  Teach me!

Though the arrogant have smeared me with lies

I keep your precepts with all my heart.

Lies are sticky, but only touch the outside.  Lying is an act of arrogance – to believe that you are bigger than the truth.  But a whole heart will survive that – and a whole heart is needed to follow God’s law, since it is not an outwardly thing but an inwardly, spiritual law of the heart.

Their hearts are callous and unfeeling

But I delight in your law.  

A heart of flesh loves instruction from God – loves being changed, being directed, being contradicted, because  it means relationship with one who is good and does only good.  A fleshly heart is keen for its own changed life, for the effects on the people around.  It is not only callous, unfeeling and insensitive to reject God’s purpose in sanctifying and changing us – it is stupid and selfish!  Stupid because we cannot pretend that faith has any other purpose, selfish because it prevents others from receiving God’s truth.  Every believer must whole-heartedly give themselves to God’s process of change.

It was good for me to be afflicted

So that I might learn your decrees.

Amen – even at a considerable price, to say this brings us determination and helps us to value what is valuable.  Because even if I knew many things previously, then I had not learnt from them because I had done little  It was good, Lord, that I should suffer and be prompted into action.  Recalled to life!

The law from your mouth is more precious to me

Than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.

Now I can say this for real.  Our true riches are the words of God spoken to us in Scripture, made living and real by his spirit.  With them comes such wisdom that we can solve problems in the world, we can change our relationships for more beautiful and worthwhile ways.  With these words come challenges to our selfishness, our egocentricity, our remaining sins.  May it ever be so, Lord God!  Not dead words recalling a past, as some think, but your living law that teaches me and explains everything I observe in the world around – your law that brings me now to an attitude of worship – shows your great love for me, Father, as so good! So good!  Amen.

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Verses 57-64

You are my portion, O Lord;

I have promised to obey your words.

He is what we are allotted, now; not a thing, but a person, not a future idea or a dream of success but  relationship – this follows on from our promise to obey, and then sustains it – which began by inspiration and continues by inspiration as we give over our will to his spirit in us.

I have sought your face with all my heart

Be gracious to me according to your promise.

The writer’s past has been one of seeking God’s face – can we say it is our past too?  Our heart will divide if we do not give it over to God and still then we have to seek him – like being in love and wanting to see your friend, not being content to know they are there!  But God’s promises of grace from the beginning of all things to now are the things that will allow us to have this undivided heart.

I have considered my ways

and have turned my steps to your statutes.

That really is the only option!  To turn again onto the path and keep walking.  The statutes are a stairway in places, every step forward taking us a step up, in other places a meadow or a rocky cliff-edge.

I will hasten and not delay

to obey your commands.

It is a rush!  Like a man hurrying home, shifting his pack high.  As I read this now, I feel convicted, but I also remember the adrenalin of running after the Lord’s ways.  Do you?  Nothing else feels like that!

Though the wicked bind me with ropes,

I will not forget your law.

Like a man off the path, longing to be walking the high ways, over the hills, even though he is restrained, his mind and his spirit still travel with the Lord.  It’s not the destination, but the company…

At midnight I will rise to give you thanks

for your righteous laws.

Relevant at midnight and at all other times.  Rising in the body is good – it prepares us to rise in our spirits as well.

I am a friend to all who fear you,

to all who follow your precepts.

By virtue of the grace given to all of us – and don’t I love being in brotherhood!  Finding a new brother is sweet, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the brothers are wise if they set out to go walking together.

The Earth is filled with your love, O Lord,

teach me your decrees.

The view from the top of the hill.  Our response has to be awe: how did you do it, Lord?  Show me what makes you so good.  I want to be where you are!

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Verses 49-56

Remember your word to your servant,

for you have given me hope.

We ask God to remember the past because he has already spoken – we are not praying to a new God or a God who will answer for the first time!  He has given his hope before and earlier – and yet this is hope for us today.

My comfort in my suffering is this,

Your promise preserves my life.

Yes, he does, it does.  Jesus is the culmination of all God’s promises and he has brought us eternal life.  God’s promise preserved Jesus himself – and his promises to us will preserve our lives as long as is necessary: until, for example, the bibles are delivered, because we are all the fulfilment of God’s promise to someone somewhere!

The arrogant mock me without restraint,

but I do not turn from your law.

Make an offering of determination to God.  Sacrificing regular daily work, which takes continual effort, or determination to continue despite opposite.

I remember your ancient laws, O Lord,

and I find comfort in them.

The oldest laws – to multiply, to subdue the earth and steward it – as well as all those laws which are now ancient for us – they should bring us comfort.  It should be pleasant to be obedient.

Indignation grips me because of the wicked

who have forsaken your law.

A school that doesn’t hear God!  It makes me angry – and sad.

Your decrees are the theme of my song

wherever I lodge.

This is time well spent – but not singing them or singing about them is the real waste of our time.

In the night I remember your name, O Lord,

and I will keep your law.

Our memory is a tool for our growth and has its own patterns.  We remember God’s grace to us at strange times – sometimes in dreams or waking in the night.

This has been my practice

I will obey your precepts.

Awaking at night and remembering how God introduced himself to us can be a powerful way of establishing something within your spirit.

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Verses 41-48

May your unfailing love come to me, O Lord,

your salvation according to your promise.

The Lord’s love is unfailing – it does not, and cannot weaken – and his salvation is always prefigured and promised.

Then I will answer the one who taunts me,

for I trust in your word.

Our answer to the accuser, or the accusing voice of self-criticism, comes from God’s love for us, not from our understanding or ability, and the effect of this argument is that it teaches us to trust in God.  The accuser can be the Devil, as Jesus found in the wilderness, and exactly so did he make his answer: with the word, based on his knowledge of the father’s love for him.  The accuser can be our guilt or any obstacle in life: all receive the same, simple, child-like, foolish answer: God has love for me and has promised to save me and he will not fail – he will change me if I have done wrong and been sinful and he requires me simply to believe this.

Do not snatch the word of truth from my mouth,

for I have put my hope in your laws.

The word can disappear from our lives, if we cease our eating of it.  Then we will look around in anger and sorrow, seeking the thing we have lost, but ineffectually until we submit ourselves and our behaviour to God’s changing power.  The transformational power of God’s word is so strong that absolutely anybody can come to faith in an instant and believe, but absolutely no-one can remain as they were in character and behaviour if they are to remain in his Word.  We have to pray, Lord, please don’t take your utterance away from me like the world seeks to take it away.  Plenty of things remove God’s word from my mind and my mouth – too many – but to hope in God’s laws is to speak of it, and speak it – to breathe it in and out – and we should want to say ‘I cannot live without it any longer’.  This is the air I breathe… this is my daily bread… your holy presence living in me, your very word, spoken to me.

I will obey your law

forever and ever.

Talking of God’s law, it is eternal.  And it makes us eternal.

I will walk about in freedom,

for I have sought out your precepts.

Freedom from the law of the world and from the world’s pattern of being only comes when we seek the pearl of great worth and renounce everything else.  A maturing believer must choose to prioritise this over all things.

I will speak of your statutes before kings

and will not be put to shame,

Our evangelism, our witness, will be fruitful wherever we go because of the pattern of our new life, which is not an outward veneer but the natural expression of a changed heart.

For I delight in your commands

because I love them.

This heart-search becomes a simple love story: we go where we love to, when we seek God’s power and his breath and his will.

I lift my hands to your commands, which I love,

and I meditate on your decrees.

Worship and meditation on all that God says is the life and breath of this seeking for God’s word.  We worship with it – speaking his own words as truth in our lives – and dwelling, chewing, discussing his law and his parables and his instructions.  Thank you, Father, for Scripture, for Jesus and the faithful reports of his good friends who have given us their testimony.  May each of our lives be a testimony to the God who speaks and gives life through grace!

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Verses 33-40

Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees;

then I will keep them to the end.

The Lord’s teaching is eternally effective because it changes our character, instead of simply describing the way things are to us.

Give me understanding and I will keep your law

and obey it with all my heart.

To try to keep God’s law without understanding what it is, or what it is for, or how it works, is not the point.  We are no longer slaves but sons and heirs and he wants us to join the family business and participate in his way with a whole-hearted response, just as he does.  Has it ever occurred to you that God is not above the law?  He keeps it pure and undefiled, in his son, in his spirit and in himself.

Direct me in the path of your commands

for there I find my delight.

My search for joy can finish in his command – in his Word – if I care to think about it in that light.  If we seek delight there, we will find it.

Turn my heart towards your statutes

and not towards selfish gain.

Yes, that all my ambitions might find a place in you, Lord.  We are very broken – we can’t turn our own hearts at all!  This is a real symptom of the disease of sin – a disobedient heart that longs for and lusts after unholy things – but this is a true proof of God’s grace: he will turn our heart for us.  And God’s laws run exactly opposite to selfishness: we need have no worry or guilt or self-criticism when our hearts are after the things he says.

Turn my eyes away from worthless things;

preserve my life according to your word.

To stay fixed on the valuable things is to remain alive!  Life is not worth living if all we can see are diseased things.  But the things we let into our spirit through our eyes will extend and preserve our life.

Fulfil your promise to your servant,

so that you may be feared.

Testimony is powerful, isn’t it?  It is awe-inspiring and intended to shock us with God’s gracefulness and faithfulness.  If God were to keep all his promises – just consider how many that is for a moment – wouldn’t that unutterably change our lives?  Now consider: God will keep all his promises!  His promises to Adam, to Eve, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to David, Solomon, to Hannah and to Simeon and Anna and Mary and Elizabeth and to Jonah and to Jeremiah and every secret promise he has made to every king, prophet, teacher, labourer, designer, musician, angel, messenger, translator, builder, farmer, meteorologist, child and grandparent.  Consider the scope of these promises!  All the promises he made to Jesus and to John!  If you have ever had the Spirit assure you of something, that too will be fulfilled – and if, like me, you are too forgetful of the promises God has made to you, testify to them, write them down, record them for your children, tell them abroad.  All the little ones – the ones we consider little – about the weather and the mood of someone we have to talk to and the ones about work and money.  All the great ones about our name in the book of life.  When we speak them with our mouth our brain records them in our experience and we build our faith.  We redesign our life.

Take away the disgrace I dread,

for your laws are good.

Fear is the enemy of satisfaction.  So we make a good swap with the Lord – our disgrace for his law!  Seek to please God, rather than any other authority, and fear no disgrace!  We cannot be disgraced before God – dis-graced!  Because Grace is not revoked.

How I long for your precepts!

Preserve my life in your righteousness.

With all this in mind, can’t we say we long to hear from God, through Scripture, through the still small voice, through a song or dance of worship, through the wind in the trees!  To understand his law and his way of living, his new covenant of grace, his sacrifice in our place, his healing power, his life where there was death!  These are the things that will bring us life as we understand them, experience them, make them primary in our lives.  His righteousness – his unique characteristic – is what we seek!  And we were promised that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be satisfied.

It was around this point that I had my own personal revelation.  I wrote, on the 12.1.14; In my teaching, in my writing, I want to please God.  There’s all this talk of pleasing Ofsted – none of pleasing our creator, who cares for us, who’s nearby.  That was when I decided to leave teaching and seek a new way.

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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!

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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.

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Verses 1-8

Blessed are they whose ways are blameless,

Our ways are important to God – it’s our ways that make us stand out in the world.  And what are these blameless ways?  I think of James’ letter – Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  (1:27)  There’s an inner and an outer dimension to this walk – and being in a way that is merciful, faithful, generous, free is to blameless.  The Lord blesses them – and these, in this psalm, are his words of blessing.  Those who receive the blessing are those justified by faith, believing and carrying no sin.

who walk according to the way of the Lord.

This means our walk is defined by the God’s word: his law is the definitive guide to every step and the entire trek – our stumbling, childlike toddle and our youthful racing.  The beginning of our responsibility to crawl forward like a baby, and begin to rise to our feet!

Blessed are they who keep his statutes

and seek him with all of their heart.

To keep his law and to follow his law is to seek him.  To be obedient is to prove that you are willing to be visited by the Spirit.   The greatest treat or happiness we can have is to be in the place of seeking God.

They do nothing wrong:

they walk in his ways.

Because they don’t fear stepping out of God’s will, they know the height and width and breadth of his love for them, so his ways are explorable, free, open – what we might call free-grazing!

You have laid down precepts

that are to be fully obeyed.

Yes, commands and instructions that are only valuable when we carry them out to the end – when we complete the task and finish the race.  And to fulfil things like this – when we have no strength?  God promises to be our strength – they shall run and not grow weary – and so we don’t fulfil these instructions by the letter but by the Spirit – by God’s grace.  These precepts are foundational for us – their weight is indicated when the psalmist says ‘You have laid down…’ as if they were flagstones or paving on the road.  And this is a prophetic address to Jesus, too.  He has laid down instructions that, fully obeyed, become a firm and plain pathway to walk, to run, through life, almost fulfilling themselves in us rather than requiring us to fulfil them.

Oh that my ways were steadfast

in obeying your decrees!

After receiving revelation of the great value of God’s word, what else can we do but cry out in sorrow for our failure and in desire for their good!  This is our new heart’s cry – the Spirit of life within us cries this out to God – as did Jesus, who loved to obey his father and longed to follow his decrees, even unto death.

Then I would not be put to shame

when I consider all your commands.

Because our conscience will shame us if we think honestly – for all the commands convict us, sooner or later.  If one does, then the whole law does.  But a right sense of shame only exalts God higher, in thankfulness for Jesus and in adoration of God’s holiness.  And when we realise that it is God’s single purpose to bring about his kingdom by changing us so that we do indeed become steadfast and obedient, then we will worship even more, knowing that we can be free of shame.

I will praise you with an upright heart

as I learn your righteous laws.

The process of being shamed and of continuing is the process of learning the law of love – and our redeemed heart will continue to praise God all through the process of sanctification – all through the increasing revelation of God’s plan – even while we read this psalm.  Not a thing can happen but, taken rightly, it will lead us to praise God.

I will obey your decrees;

do not utterly forsake me.

Yes, it will happen.  My obedience to your word, O God, will happen, not because of me but because of what you have promised, again and again.  It will happen because you, yourself, are training me in righteousness.  To leave me without shame and with no conviction would be worse than to suffer correction, so do not forsake me.  What we have now from you is good for us.

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Psalm 2 – A Meditation on Authority

This Psalm is a powerful revelation of the true nature of Jesus’ authority, contrasted with the authority of rulers and kings in the world.  It reveals God’s plan to judge wicked and unjust rulers and establish a greater Kingdom, installing his Son who willingly suffers, identifies himself with his Father and receives all power and authority in Heaven and Earth at the cross – his true victory and the real place of our rejoicing!  The Lord also speaks instructions to rulers and people of authority.

God the Father’s voice speaks to the Son directly in this Psalm.  Surely it was revelation of his Father’s plan for him in this that gave Jesus the power to stand in the face of worldly authorities and continue his pre-eminent claims.

And we should know whom it is we serve, whether as rulers or individuals.  We too can know God’s purpose is for us to have a place in a greater Kingdom – but not through our own righteousness, but through Jesus.

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?

This first question is an expression of exasperation.  The nations and peoples certainly plot, but what is their purpose in doing so, and how do they reason it?  Whole countries seem to get together and make plans to prosper themselves outside of God’s plan – and without any chance of success.  Races and ethnic groups can make plans to raise themselves up, but only God calls nations together.

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.

The Kings – Herod Antipas, Tiberius and others – have a position as if ready for a battle, and with their advisors they directly challenge both their Father God and his Messiah – who has come.  This should be the time for them to acknowledge him, not make a challenge!

“Let us break their chains,” they say, “And throw off their fetters.”

They want to be free from what they see as chains and restrictions – his moral law, written in their hearts – their consciences – which they correctly identify as coming from ‘them’ collectively – God and his Anointed.  But what a misunderstanding!  The chains they are experiencing are the convictions of their conscience because they do not follow the way of the righteous, neither meditating on his law (see Ps 91) or proceeding justly.  It seems glamorous, to revolt and ‘throw off their fetters’, but this is an undignified thing for a ruler to say!  These rulers should be applying God’s law and ensuring that their realms are places of peace and stability, and yet they are the ones planning a revolution!  Furthermore, it is they who have created chains for the undeserving – imprisoning Jesus on no charge and taxing the weak.

The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them.

God’s reaction to this nonsensical attitude is ridicule.  He is careless of their plans, which make no threat to him at all.  In fact, he mocks them – for the mighty shall be laid low and the humble exalted.  Jesus can scoff at them too, as the rulers unknowingly effect their own humbling through the unchanged attitude of their hearts.  He can be sure that their plans will fail.

The he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.”

After this laughter, he turns to anger – a righteous anger – that is intended to rebuke them, knock them back from their plans.  His anger fell at the crucifixion with the darkness that covered the earth, and the earthquake.  Rightly they would have been terrified, but the earth shakes as he confounds their plans.  Their intention was to punish an innocent man and rid themselves of the voice that rebuked them, but this itself effected God’s will of installing Jesus as King over Life and Death, all punishment and reward, when he suffered death on the cross, on that holy place where God had always accepted true sacrifice.  The centurion on the hill, who was himself a ruler, had no doubt that Jesus was the Son of the King when the earth shook beneath his feet.

I will proclaim the decree of the Lord:

Jesus can proclaim the new law – the new decree – the true statement of justice and the prophetic word of power at the cross.  He will be the new decree – he himself will be the new law – the entire sacrifice and the access to the righteousness it wins for us – and he will speak it abroad by suffering on the cross and then rising to life again!

He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.

God said this to Jesus at his baptism, but also in the secret times of prayer, and when Jesus suffered for his brothers and sisters he really and completely reflected God’s nature, and so the bond was strengthened and the relationship taken to another level.  God’s revelation to Jesus is the foundation for his ability to rule and replace the other Kingdoms of the earth.

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.

So by suffering on the cross, Jesus asked his Father for the new authority and received it, because God was planning to give it to him.  Then, when appearing to his disciples (Matthew 28.18) he explained that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  He had inherited the nations from the bad rulers, and all the ends of the earth were his, which is why he commissions the disciples with the words “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… and surely I am with you always, to the very end of time”.  This would not have happened if Jesus had not asked – and not only did he ask in words, but in actions too.

You will rule them with an iron sceptre; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.

So at this enthronement, Jesus also fulfilled the prophecy of Daniel, to shatter the Kingdoms of the world with the inauguration of a Kingdom without end.  He is given a rod of authority that serves to break any other – a rod for punishment, surely.  The Roman Empire does indeed break up into pieces after this, and what other empire can last without being broken up?  The kingdoms of the world do not last like his kingdom.

Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth.

God does want his appointed rulers to be wise and to carry out their responsibilities properly – even if it takes his mockery, anger and punishment to bring that about.  They need to make the decision to be wise – as does anyone who gains authority and rule – and it certainly is part of his plan for us to pay heed to prophetic warning in Scripture.  His warnings are the best guide to good rule.

Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

And these warnings are: to remain a servant personally before God, however much authority you gain – and to keep a holy awe and wariness – a fear – of God and his plan to raise and lower Kingdoms.  Do not expect that because he has exalted you in the earth one day he means for you to stay that way for ever.  So rejoice in what you have received, but always, always keep it in the perspective of gratitude.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

More instructions to rulers: find and then love the Son of God, who as ruler of all things in Heaven and Earth has a right to expect you to behave in line with his plan, or destroy you simply as you are about your business.  He will be patient and give you warning, but when he speaks take care to respond!  Rulers have less leeway than individual people.  His judgement is sudden, always sudden.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

This ruler will be good to all his servants, rich or poor, who come and hide themselves in him in trouble.  Even on the cross, he offers his body as a shelter in which to take cover from the onslaughts of the world, and a most effective shelter, because no attack can succeed against the true ruler.