Tag: sanctification

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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 119 – 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 be 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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Coming Soon… Psalm 119

In the first half of 2014 I made an extended Bible study as part of my devotional time with God, re-reading Psalm 119 – known to some Bibletriviaphiles as the longest chapter and Psalm in Scripture. I’ve always had a particular fondness to it, since the little red Hodder and Stoughton NIV I carried almost everyday at secondary school habitually fell open there, in the Psalms, and the second section, ‘How can a young man keep his way pure?’, spoke to me very directly.

But reading it again in the light of the path of my last two years, I’ve gained a great deal by doing more than silently thinking on it. Pray-reading has become part of my devotional discipline since May, so praying this Psalm aloud, speaking God’s truth back to Him, meant that it became more important as I gave it more power in me. (If you are unfamiliar with the discipline of pray-reading, you may know the lectio divina of the catholic tradition.) Around Christmas when I talked with my Dad, he also made a comment that Jesus, raised to know and love scripture, would have had the Psalms as his prayer and songbook – so to read them as he would have read them, letting David’s ‘I’ become directly prophetic of Jesus’ daily walk, puzzling and wondering on what gospel occasions he might have prayed these very words, reading them like this has also given them a real depth. If anything, the solemnity with which these prayers and poems were used by Jesus inspires me to treat them the same.

And at the same time I’ve experienced a re-awakening of my spiritual life, as God has brought about great changes in my life. Realising that my life’s greatest work will always be the fitting of myself for heaven – the sacrifice of my self to Jesus – the altering of my walk from a selfish one to a holy one – has meant I have discovered a new passion and insight for the wonderful work of sanctification that God works in us through the Holy Spirit. And in Psalm 119 I have found a step-by-step account of sanctification in the believer.

At the same time as studying and praying these words I have also been making real decisions about my life and acting upon them. The last year has seen my engagement to be married and my movement from employed work to self-employed work. In walking this way, Psalm 119 has been a direct guide to my thoughts and words.

To begin a brief overview of the Psalm, a word about revelation. I have learnt to distinguish between the knowledge that we can gain in our minds – the understanding of facts, causes, purposes and events that engages our intellect and our reason – from the deep understanding and knowledge that is born in the spirit. One is worldly, the other heavenly, one will pass, the other will remain forever. Intellectual understanding can lead to revelation – but it does not cause it – for revelation to the spirit of a believer is the gracious gift of God. Let me explain a little more: it is quite possible to know something to be true – for example, the promise of Jesus in Matthew 6 that our Father in heaven will provide for us – and yet to have no conviction of this and to fail to act upon it in any way so that your manner is different to those who have no faith. It is possible to understand that Jesus rose from the dead and do nothing about it – to intellectually think that this is the most reasonable reading of the evidence – and not to have it touch your heart or change the manner of your life. It is possible to know many things… But when a lesson sinks deep to touch your spirit, you must act on it – it is unbearable not to. So we see those who are moved to act in pity and love and give all their energy to charitable work when we who know that it is valuable do not. What is the difference between them and us? That their understanding is a spiritual understanding – that it is more than their head knowing that this is true, but their very being assents to it.

This then is real teaching, real education. This is also real growth. No-one – in this life – can bear all, and we need not feel guilty for not being touched or moved by those things that move others. But conviction within us can be a sign that our spirit longs to be involved – and that conviction is God’s greatest gift to us for daily guidance.

So when reading Scripture we are instructed not simply to look at it, think about it and apply it theoretically, but to actively invite revelation.

How can we do this? How can we overcome ourselves and make ourselves available to God – for in his mercy and grace, he is always willing to give?

Firstly we must ask – with words and actions. He may expect us to ‘prove’ that we are ready – which may actually consist of acting, physically, to replace the normally dominant mind with a more balanced internal hierarchy, in which the Spirit of God within us calls to God our Father. Personally, I aim for this rebalancing through the following spiritual disciplines: prayer walks, when in the country; prayer in tongues, when travelling, feeling short of time, in company, or wanting to include some daily act such as preparing food as part of my prayer; kneeling, bowing and lying down, when in congregation or in private, to express my awe and obedience particularly; singing, in almost all circumstances; dancing, in privacy and increasingly in congregation; pray-reading or lectio-divina, which is challenging but very valuable; making a sacrifice of time, money or something valuable to me by giving it away, less frequently than I should!

In general, the revelation I have received from the Psalm is this: obedience to God’s law, which we now understand in the new covenant, changes a person so as to bring about decisive action in them, which in turn leads to experience, often struggles and suffering as we overcome the remaining human nature and become less worldly, but these pains allow us to understand with our spirit and receive God’s revelation, which makes us more like Jesus, our perfect model, and makes us more dependent upon God’s Word, which we need to teach us the more we find the wisdom of the world will not suit our changed way of life, and also causes us to enjoy and desire God’s law with greater fervour, bringing about more obedience. To me, this is a beautifully clear teaching method that can never be completed in this life, only the speed of our travel upon the path changed, for once engaged, the effects upon us are indelible. It is the work of re-creation, of sanctification in its simplicity and beauty and starkness and severity. At times, God wishes to show us subtle things, at others, to confront us with harsh truths and necessary sacrifices. And his simple entry route for us is pure obedience – to believe in God and in the one he has sent.