Tag: meditate

Psalm Nineteen (Part Ten)

Psalm 19:13-14

Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer (NIV).

We conclude this great psalm about God’s revelation. Its closing words speak joyfully about his confidence in God and the grace that is freely received from him. God’s words are intended to lead us to his joy, but that is only received as we trust in him, as he has revealed himself to us.

“Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.” As David prays for help against sin, he uses the argument that such help will enable him to live for God as he should. This is the blameless character of which he speaks. He would be blameless in regard to willful or defiant sin. Every saint should make this his/her aim, as also the apostle Paul tried to live. Because of this, I always try to maintain a clear conscience before God and all people (Acts 24:16 NLT).

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart…” David concludes this psalm with what has become a very well-known prayer. Notice that he asks for God’s help with both his outer man (“my mouth”) and his inner man (“my heart”). As Jesus taught, the mouth speaks what comes out of the heart. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him (Matthew 12:34-35 NIV). What David prayed showed his concern for the purity of the whole person, body and soul. We might perhaps say the right thing, but if the heart is not producing those words, we are being hypocritical.

David recognized that his heart would meditate or ponder on things that his mouth might not necessarily say, yet he wanted to be pure in heart also, for he knew that God knew what he was thinking in his heart (cf. Psalm 139:1-6). Idolatry of the heart is as evil as outward performance (Ezekiel 14:3-4). David wants God alone to be worshipped by him.

David was focused on the Lord. He desired that his words and thoughts would be pleasing in your sight…. Here was David’s great concern, that his whole person and actions would bring pleasure to God. The believer should not merely be concerned about avoiding offense to God, but he or she should have a positive concern about how to please the living God. If we are made to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, then we ought to recognize that we are not reaching the goal of our being until there is this joint pleasure of God in us and we in him. True Christianity is more than not doing things; it is living in the Lord’s presence in fellowship with him to bring him honor and pleasure and to enjoy all his excellent worth.

O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer: Here is the focus of David’s life. The God who has spoken in creation and in the holy writings is more than a communicator to David. He is also personally interested in David, and graciously makes himself available to those who trust in him. David views him as his Rock, the one who is able to provide full stability to David’s life, and as his Redeemer, because he had set David free from his sins (see Romans 4). The goal of the Scriptures is to lead us to have fellowship with the living God. David entered into that purpose. Have we?

Grace and peace, David

The result of the mission of the Servant of the Lord

DSCN0110Isaiah 42:3c, 4b

The Servant established justice. Jesus the Messiah acts in a big theater of operations: “on earth”. For nearly 1800 years, it looked like Jesus was only at work in western Asia, Europe, North America, and northern Africa for a time. Then suddenly, he started to shine his light in other places for about the next 200 years. Now, all around the world people from every tribe and language are coming to the Lord and Savior, Jesus. We live in great days of the progress of the mission. We need to abandon our local, provincial interests and praise the Lord for what he is doing in the world today. Certainly, the darkness is dark, but the true Light is shining and more and more people have received the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:6). We should shake off the gloom and get involved in Jesus’ mission, as the early apostles did (Acts 5:41-42; 13:46-52).

Christ told Peter that he would build his church (Mt 16:18). This prophecy expresses that same certainty. His justice will be brought to earth, because God’s appointed goal is to make a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1-2; 22:1-5) to share with his new creation people.

The Servant of the Lord established hope. The idea of the Hebrew word is “to wait” or “to hope”. The word can mean either. Here I think the second is better because of Matthew’s use of hope in his use of the Septuagint (LXX) translation of Isaiah (Matthew 12:21). The islands, the most remote places of the earth, will have hope or confident expectation. The eternal inheritance his people share in him provides them with a certain basis to expect much more than they could have in this world that is destined to pass away. Let us live as people with an eternal destiny ought to live. To be specific, this means that we will need to invest time in setting our thoughts on things above. Reread and meditate on Colossians 3:1-4. This requires us to meditate on what we have in Christ, including what we will surely have in heaven. We must strengthen your heart with these things!

The basis of this is the Servant’s instruction (torah). One of the great truths of the Gospels is that Jesus is the great Prophet or Teacher. His instruction becomes a crucial part of our hope, which restructures our world and life view. We now are to think of ourselves, our lives, and our share eternity with the living God in conformity with Christ’s instruction. Since he is the fulfillment of the old torah, his new torah, given through him and his apostles and prophets by the Holy Spirit becomes our torah. He is God’s final revelation (Hebrews 1:1-2); he is the Word or Message. His instruction about God’s saving reign becomes the basis for our hope. He has revealed the Father (John 17:6-8). Believing his message is the way to life (John 5:24). To believe his instruction means the difference between eternal wisdom and eternal foolishness (Matthew 7:24-27). Don’t be foolish! Let’s build our lives on Christ and his instruction!

Grace and peace, David