This portion of Psalm 119 starts
with “He” the fifth of the Hebrew Alphabets. The Psalmist realizes that the way
to clearly understand the Word of God is to depend on God Himself, the real
author of the Word. We know that it’s the Holy Spirit who illumines the Word of
God, and give us insight and understanding. Here the term ‘statutes’ has to do
with personal application of the Word. In other words, the Psalmist wants divine
assistance to enable him to see clearly the intention of God through His
revelation, so that he can apply them to his life.
In reading these verses, we can
sense the Psalmist’s deep desire to walk and live according to the Word of God.
Notice all the action words: teach me, give me, make me, incline my heart, turn
my eyes, revive me, establish me and, etc. One of the things we believers need
to constantly battle with in our pilgrimage is covetousness. The world has much
attraction and we can sense the lure to gravitate towards worldliness. The
Psalmist here shows us the best remedy to this pull.
It is the Spirit who will give us
understanding of the Word of God, and also enables us to keep them. But there
must be the desire to want to observe them. It is one thing to read the Word as
a duty and another to truly desire it. Without desire, our coming to the Word
will become a chore and passionless, and we will be lethargic when it comes to
applying the precepts. Reading and understanding the Word is a divine-human
collaboration. It requires active participation and also a deep reliance on God
Himself to reveal His heart through the Word. The Psalmist knows the need to
depend on the Lord and hence in verse 35, he asked the Lord to make him go in
the direction of His commandments.
Realizing that the natural inclination
of his heart was toward covetousness, the Psalmist asked the Lord to bend His
heart and inclination toward the witness of His Word. A heart that is not bent
toward God will be easily lured away by covetousness and materialism. Hence it’s
needful to ask God to give us a divine inclination to desire His Word. We can understand why the Lord taught us to
pray that we be not led into temptation but to be delivered from evil.
One avenue the devil often exploits
and causes us to stumble is our sight. When he is able to keep us focused on
the vain things of this world we will soon be enticed. Wasn’t this what happened
to Eve? When she was over engrossed on the forbidden fruit, she soon forgot God’s
instruction not to partake of it. Our eyes are the windows to our soul. It’s imperative that we have them focused on
God’s Word and not the vain experiences that the world seems to provide. Let’s
turn our focus on God and His Word.
We detect the Psalmist’s yearning
for spiritual depth in verse 38. Anyone who wants, and is devoted to walk in
reverential fear and awe of the Lord, need to grow deep root in God. It is the experiential
knowledge and application of the Word of God that will give us the depth and latitude
to ensure spiritual stability. It keeps us from stumbling by the less valuable things
of this world. If we want to serve God with reverence and fear, we need to grow
deep in the Word. If we have no depth in His Word, we may end up polarizing toward
the reproach of this world. This is something the Psalmist wants to avoid. And
so must we. In verse 39, the Psalmist asserted that the judgments or the things
prescribed in the Scripture are good. They are good because one of God’s attributes
is goodness. God’s Word like Him is good, true, faithful, unchanging, pure,
eternal and totally trustworthy. No wonder the Psalmist, in verse 40, yearns deeply
for His precepts and asked to be made sensitive to walk righteously before God.
What about us? Remember what 1 John
2:15-17 say? “Do not love the world nor
the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of
the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the
world. The world is
passing away, and also its lusts; but
the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
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