2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
As Christians our very appropriate way of expressing how insufficient we are in comparison to God is to identify ourselves as sinners. Indeed, we are born with sin and without the ability to stop sinning until something very spiritually significant happens in our lives. That is we don’t have to choice not to sin until we repent and accept Christ as our Savior. If you review JN 14: 6 and RO 6-10 the reasons for this are made known. When we stop and think about it, some unseen force brought us to the place where we made the decision to repent. That, Dear Ones, is the Lord Who put out an invitation to each of us to come to faith.
Long before God ever gave up His only begotten Son on the cross for us, Jews also grappled with the question of their own insufficiency to obey God or know anything of His ways on their own. Today’s segment of PS 119 which represents the spiritual meaning of the fourth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, dalet, demonstrates how mankind can recognize that insufficiency through God’s word and where they can go for help with it. We also see in our faithful Psalmist a real, and I believe God-initiated, determination to obey the law. In these wonderful words of his, we can see an acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty. PS 119: 25-32, “I lie defeated in the dust; revive me, as you have promised. I confessed all I have done, and You answered me; teach me Your ways. Help me to understand Your laws, and I will meditate on Your wonderful teachings. I am overcome by sorrow; strengthen me, as You have promised. Keep me from going the wrong way, and in Your goodness teach me Your law. I have chosen to be obedient; I have paid attention to Your judgments. I have followed Your instructions, Lord; do not let me be put to shame. I will eagerly obey Your commands, because You will give me more understanding.”
When I read the first verse in this passage, I was immediately reminded of the Lord’s action in EZK 37: 1-14, the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones. What God does for one individual, He can do for one nation. The metaphor here is that Israel had become a heap of dry bones because of her long-term disobedience to God. But just as God allowed her to come to this state, so He has the power and is willing to put muscle and flesh back on that pile of bones and breathe life into it. In other words, He restored Israel, keeping a promise that had been made in numerous prophecies that came before Israel’s restoration. As I mentioned before, God has the same power to restore the spiritual life of an individual as He does with a nation. Our Psalmist understands that and expresses his willingness to accept the invitation to come to faithfulness and obedience that God extends to us all.
We are blessed to live in the age of grace. RO 10: 9-10 reveals the power that confession can have for us. “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from death, you will be saved. For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.” Our Psalmist didn’t live in the age of grace, but he understood the need for confession just the same. He approaches God in humility, beseeching the Lord to “teach me Your ways.” Herein is his acknowledgment that God is the way out of lying “defeated in the dust.” Just as we have our trials and tribulations in our modern lives which cause us to suffer and feel pain, the Psalmist and people of his time face their troubles. Yet, he understands that obedience to God, God’s guidance in keeping him from evil ways, and the goodness of God’s teachings open a path of release from his sorrows. His assertions not only apply to him, but they apply to us as well.
Without God’s guidance and presence in our lives, we truly are insufficient to break the yoke that Satan wants to put around us. With God, we can be victorious over evil. There is no question that we are confronted with a struggle against our own fleshly desires and outside temptation directly from the adversary. The last verse in this citation helps us to have perspective on this struggle. Let me quote it again. “I will eagerly obey Your commands, because You will give me more understanding.” When we do what God tells us to do, we may not always see His big picture, but we can come closer to seeing it. Any time we come closer to understanding God’s will, our lives are blessed by that. I am reminded of the story of the prophet, Daniel, who spent all but the first 15 years of his life in captivity serving in the royal court of his captors. His consistent obedience to God was rewarded with both God holding him in esteem [DN 10: 11] and allowing him the privilege of seeing the future [DN 10: 14]. Daniel truly emptied his vessel and allowed God to pour in and do His work through this prophet of the OT. God wants to do the same with us.
PRAYER: O Lord, I recognize that I am nothing and have nothing without You. Because of my failings and inability to overcome my sorrows on my own, I acknowledge that to be victorious over temptation and evil I must obey You. This prayer begins with many “I’s,” but the only way that it can be effective and pleasing to You is for us to bow to Your ultimate sovereignty. Like the Psalmist, we confess that listening to Your teachings, trusting Your wisdom, and being obedient to You is the only way to redemption from the power Satan wants to exert over us. Being eager to obey Your commands and following through on them when You give them to us brings us peace and joy in our hearts. That is because when we obey, You give us understanding and help us to reach higher toward Your view of things. We dedicate ourselves to listening to Your instructions for us and offer utmost thanks and adoration that You love us enough to issue them. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will look at the meaning of the fifth Hebrew letter, hay. This spiritual adventure that the Lord is taking us on has the effect of making me fall in love with Him even more. His words are powerful weapons against an evil world’s misdeeds and cruelty. The Lord is our Sword and Shield when we obey His commands. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace, Peace, and Eternal Joy Be With You,
Lynn