Psalm 119 is a love letter about God’s law. The author gushes over it. He delights in God’s statues not because he’s just one of those type A rule-followers, but because God gave us his Word to tell us who he is and who we are in light of what he has done. When we read our Bibles, we better understand who we are and to whom we belong.
Confession: We all read our Bibles imperfectly. Our efforts won’t be enough. We won’t have all the background information. We won’t know exactly what Jesus meant. Still we read. It will confuse us and convict us and sometimes make us cry and sometimes make us mad. Still we read. It will comfort us and make us laugh and give us goosebumps.
We read because this is how God reveals himself to us—not just how he revealed himself to some ancient writers at one point in history, though that’s true, but reveals himself to us, to you, now. The Holy Spirit speaks to us through God’s Word. Whether you choose a Bible study, a Bible reading plan, or a favorite book of the Bible, when you read to know God, he will make himself known to you.
Reading the Bible begins like any good habit: intentionally doing it. This means scheduling time to do it. It may mean substituting Scripture reading for lunch with coworkers or waking up a half hour earlier and reading with your first cup of coffee in the silence of the house. Set a timer so you can designate that time for God. That time is God’s time, and the work project or dirty dishes don’t matter. They have their own time. One particular day may get derailed, but you wake up the next morning with fresh resolve and fight for that time with God. Without this daily meeting, we can easily forget who God is and who he made us to be.
It doesn’t matter if you met Jesus last night or have been following him for half a century. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t cracked the spine on your Bible or if your Bible is falling apart. We all need this reminder to make time because we all forget or get too busy or think we’ve read this before or we won’t get it anyway or we’ve already gotten it all (which will never be true, by the way). Pray that God will give you an appetite for the Word.
The more you get in the Bible, the more you’ll delight in it and crave to hear God’s voice more. But it starts with today.
He walks in freedom and hope because he loves God’s word; he’s is free from shame because he delights in God’s commands and precepts. David is longing for God and you can sense his desire to be close to Him.
David loves God’s Word. He meditates on it and delights in it. He trusts God’s Word which gives him freedom and He wants to share the truth of God’s Word with others. He doesn’t just read God’s Word, David loves it and uses it as a model for His life and does what it says.
David loves God. He wants God’s word to control his life, to be a part of his very being and by doing so he doesn’t want to wilfully disobey God. His enemies taunt him and he wants to know that God love him and will not leave him. Knowing God’s love will allow him to respond to his enemies and not feel that God deserted him. David was honest with God
Knowing God’s Word gives David a love for the Word and for the commandments held in it. It gives Him a greater trust on Christ and helps Him not be ashamed of the Gospel. David’s responses are made as an outflow of his love for God’s Word. He will tell God’s Word to kings, he trusts God’s Word, he meditates on God’s Word, and He walks in the freedom found in the Word.
David loved Gods commandments and trusted him. He sought Gods precepts. Trusted that Gods word was true. He will talk to anyone about Gods word, because of his love for God and Gods word.
David trust in God’s word. David delights in the lord and all the attributes that form him as a reflection onto David. David loves all of God’s commandments.
David welcomes God’s love and salvation. He trusts in God’s word and knows he gains wisdom from spending time with God. God’s word is truth and David lives his life by the truth. He will continue to delight and seek God’s law. He will unapologetically speak of God’s word to anyone because he loves the Lord and His law. He will worship God and His commandments.
He is inviting God’s word into his life, into his hands, into his mind, as the purpose and driver of his freedom, into his words, and into his habits. He speaks of loving God’s words and commandments and seeking His precepts. It guides his responses by having an answer for all who reproach him, and giving him hope and telling His testimony. His attitude towards God’s word is one I desperately want to adopt…he is hungry for it. He embraces it and invites it and delights in it.
It makes him brave and steadfast and fills him with delight. He trust a God’s word, so he is able to respond confidently and with clarity. He absolutely loves and finds joy in the word of God.
Loving, tender, he looks to god for guidance wisdom and training. To teach him his ways so he may abide by them so he pleases god. He wants to follow in gods ways as he admires god.
That’s what I take from it. Truly love the book of Psalm it’s one of my favorites but it sometimes is hard for me to put it in to context.
He will be able to answer people reproach him; he will trust in the Word of God, he will be keeping God’s law, walk in liberty, seeking His precepts, giving testimonies before kings, not ashamed, delighting in God’s commandments, loving God’s commandments, praising God’s commandments, meditating on His statutes.