Psalm 119:20

When I sat down today to look at Psalm 119 I couldn't decide if I wanted to do all of verses 20-24 of just look at verse 20. I think I will just look at verse 20 because I think it packs a pretty good punch all by itself. 

"My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times." 

- Psalm 119:20 (ESV) - 

"I am continually overcome with longing for Your judgments."

- Psalm 119:20 (HCSB) -

"My heart is breaking with the longing that it has for Your ordinances and judgments at all times."

- Psalm 119:20 (Amplified) - 

"My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous -insatiable for your nourishing commands."

- Psalm 119:20 (The Message) - 

I wanted to use a couple different versions to look at this verse. Each version listed here gives the verse a little bit differently. In the ESV version they chose the word consumed. When we are consumed by something it means to engage fully, when we are fully engaged into something it has our attention. Think about something that usually requires your full attention like driving for instance. Driving requires your full attention, you need to be aware of changing speed limits, when lights change, when there are stop signs and when the driver in front of you changes they way they are driving. I know when I drive I have to focus on the road and not get distracted by calling people, texting or listening to music. When we are studying the Word of God it needs our full attention, we should be fully engaged into what we are reading and learning. It should be our constant attitude toward scripture. The psalmist writes "at all times." he isn't just consumed with scripture every now and then, when he went to the temple to worship or when he prayed, it was constant and all the time.

 I also liked the way the message interpreted this verse "My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous - insatiable..." If you've ever forgotten your lunch for work or school and couldn't purchase a lunch, or if your like me and sometimes getting a break to eat is out of the question some night, you will likely get home and be so hungry you might utter the well known phrase "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!" (at least I have). You get that deep ache in the pit of your stomach for just a tiny morsel of  food and you just can't stand to not have something to eat and then it seems like nothing pleases it. This is the picture that The Message paints for us in this verse. That overwhelming  desire for food that is insatiable. We should hunger after the Word of God. Paul writes in 1 Peter 2:2 "Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation." We should crave and long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word so that we can grow. But don't stop at just the milk. A baby will eventually stop growing and will fail to thrive if it's mother only ever feeds it milk. The milk is good for a time, but eventually they need cereal, then the pureed fruits/veggies, then more solid food. That is what we as Christians should desire, we need to grow in our faith, grow in our relationship with the Lord and long to learn more and more about scripture and dig into the meat and potatoes! 

Father,

Kindle a fire and desire in my heart and soul to be completely consumed with You and Your Word. I want to dig deeper into it each and every day, and I want to know You more and more. Create in me a passion, an insatiable desire to learn Your rules and statutes, to understand Your character and Your love for me. I want You to be the desire of my heart, help me to be fully focused on You. 

Psalm 119:12, 17-19

"Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes...

Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!" 

~ Psalm 119:12, 17-19 ~

I accidentally skipped verse 12 previously so let me cover that now. At first glance it may seem like a straight forward verse to look at, but I like to dig deep sometimes so here goes. First off this verse jumps out at me because it seems to me that the psalmist is asking for personal instruction from the Lord. "Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes."  When I read this I think of the fact we should be asking the Lord to give us wisdom when it comes to learning His word. I was also curious about the "Blessed are you, O LORD..." part, when you first read it you simply think that he is praising the Lord, but I couldn't help but feel that there is more to it than that. I 'googled' several things before I came across a good explanation of blessings in the Bible. In the Hebrew culture there were many many blessings, short prayers that they would utter in thanks of daily events. And then I read this, which I thought was neat.

 "The phrase ("Blessed art thou") is sometimes called the Shem Umalkhut meaning "the Name and the Sovereignty" and makes the affirmation that Adonai is King of the universe." (www.hebrew4christians.com/Blessings/Introduction/introduction.html)

I like to see the verse as "Blessed are you, O LORD (Adonai, King of the Universe), teach me your statutes!" I think this verse compliments verse 18 really well where he says "Open my eyes..." A prayer asking to be able to see the wondrous laws. It's an attitude of longing for the word and for awe at wonder. The scriptures are beautiful, if only we can open our eyes to it's wonder and beauty like the psalmist did. 

I don't have a lot to say about verse 17 but I do hope that I can pray like him and say "so I can live to keep your Word." We should live daily keeping the Word. 

Finally in verse 18 he mentions being a sojourner or stranger on the earth, it isn't a new concept we see this in 1 Chronicles 29:15, Psalm 39:12, 2 Corinthians 5:6 and Hebrews 11:13. We are citizens of heaven and therefore strangers in this world. We should be sanctified, set apart for the Lord and seeking after the Lords commandments. There is a hymn "This World is Not My Home", it  is a reminder that we aren't at home in this world, the first stanza goes like this: 

This world is not my home I'm just passing through

my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door

and I can't feel at home in this world anymore

O Lord you know I have no friend like you

if Heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do?

the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door

and I can't feel at home in this world anymore

Father, 

Blessed are you O Lord! Teach me you statutes and open my eyes to behold your wonderful laws, I pray that you open my eyes and heart to the understanding of scripture. May I keep your Word every day and remember that I am just passing through this old world on my way to heaven. I am not a citizen of this world, help me to be set apart from this world and fall in love with your word like the psalmist that wrote this beautiful Psalm. 

Psalm 119:14-16

"In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in you statutes. I will not forget your word."

~ Psalm 119:14-16 ~ 

In verse 14 the psalmist gives us a great comparison of how he views the Word of God "...delight  as much as in all riches." We should be excited in and take delight in God's word more than we are about wealth and prosperity. Riches are nothing compared to the scriptures and the glory of God. Our Bibles should hold an important place in our home and an important place in our hearts. How often do we hear stories of distant tribes that receive the Word of God translated into their own language for the first time. There is celebration, dancing, rejoicing, they pour over the scriptures that they are able to read for the very first time, something that you and I often take for granted. I was curious and looked it up on YouTube and found the following video. It brought me to tears to see these people and their reaction to receiving their first Bibles. 

How incredible (and humbling) is that? They waited in anticipation for the day they could read the Bible from Matthew to Revelation in their own language, I think this is a beautiful illustration of taking delight in God's word. Did you see how excited they were? I want that excitement in my own life. Another quick illustration for you is about a homeless man named Peter that I met on an open air evangelism trip to NYC several years ago. Peter didn't have many possessions, but he had the Word of God. He had two Bibles and a concordance and was sitting at a little table studying Matthew. That picture has stuck with me to this day, he had very little possessions but he he possessed the greatest treasure there is. I pray that this would be true of me and that I remember that it is one thing to possess the treasure of Scripture, it is another to treasure it. (See also Mark 10:25, Luke 18:25 and 12:34, Matthew 19:24 and 6:21.)

Verse 15 shares and idea we are familiar with, meditating on God's precepts and keeping our eyes fixed on His ways. I like to look up words in the dictionary so here are the four key words:

 Precepts - a doctrine that is taught

Way - a course of conduct; a journey or passage; how something is done. 

Meditate - reflect deeply on a subject; to think intently or at length. 

Fixed - securely placed of fastened or set; fixed and unmoving 

Here is the verse expanded in my own words, "I will reflect deeply, think intently and at length about the doctrine taught in Your Word and my eyes will be securely fastened and set on the course of conduct set out in Your Holy Scriptures." How many times do we just glance over the scripture in our quiet time and devotions and don't take time to really meditate on it and think about what it says and how we can apply it to our lives. I know I am very guilty of this at times. The psalmist just had the law and the teaching from previous generations at his disposal and we have the entire cannon of Scripture, we should be willing to spend time soaking it up like a sponge. When I read the last part "and my eyes fixed on your ways." I thought of Hebrews 12:1-3. May our eyes be fixed on Jesus so that we can run the race with perseverance. 

I also love verse 16, but I really think the last part speaks for itself. "I will not forget your word." May we never forget or neglect the Word of God. See Deuteronomy 6:5-9, 8:6.

Father, 

I pray that like the psalmist I will take delight in Your Word and that it would become my treasure. I pray that I will keep it close to my heart, memorize it and take time to meditate on it and fix my eyes on You. May it be in my heart and mind continually and that I will never forget it. And may I have an attitude of excitement and joy over reading Your Word like the Kimyal tribe had when they first received the blessing of Bibles in their own language.

Psalm 119:13

"With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word." 

Psalm 119:13-16

I don't know about you, but I think that these are some pretty powerful verses, but then again the majority of Psalm 119 are powerful verses. I especially love the last part of verse 16, but we'll get to that soon. 

In verse 13 the psalmist says "with my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth." I see here the psalmist pointing out the rules are truly from the mouth of God. If we take a look back at the founding father, and no I don't mean George Washington, Abraham heard the laws for the people from the mouth of God and they were inscribed in stone. The psalmist here isn't afraid to declare them openly. He isn't just whispering them in his heart, he is declaring them aloud. As I like to do often lets look at the dictionary definition of declare. 

To declare something is to state firmly; announce publicly or officially; proclaim one's support, sympathy or opinion for or against; to state emphatically and authoritatively. In essence, when you make a declaration about something, you aren't doing so with meekness you are doing so with boldness and authority. We should openly declare what the Bible says with boldness, but not forgetting that we should also do so with gentleness, respect and patience. Look at 2 Timothy 2:23-26, Paul is writing to Timothy to let him know not to get caught up in controversies that lead to quarrels, he should teach with patient endurance and correct with gentleness so that God may lead them to repentance  and thus a knowledge of truth. To talk about the truth of God's Word with boldness but also with gentleness and patience can be difficult. We need to pray that the Lord gives us the wisdom to mesh the three together when we tell people about our faith and what we believe. 

I'm about to get on a soap box for a minute so bear with me because I think this has to go with the above verses. I think that we as Christians need to take this approach in our culture today. We know the truth, we know that homosexuality is a sin, that marriage is a sacred institution for one woman and one man. We know that premarital sex is wrong, that abortion is murder and that lying, stealing, cheating, murder etc. are all punishable sins. But I think we often forget that we are just as guilty as the world around us if not more so because we know the truth, yet some days we chose to live in sin and I do it too! I get angry and frustrated and develop and complaining spirit and a sinful attitude, when my attitude should be like that of Christ. Yet (and here comes my soap box) we chose to condemn sinners, judge them, and protest against what we know is sin. We stand on street corners with signs, we protest by putting pictures and banners on our blogs or Facebook's, we will yell at people and shove scripture in their face. But here's the thing, standing on a street corner with a sign, sharing our opinion even though it may be God's truth, or acting as though we are "holier than thou", isn't the way we should go about it. We live in a world where people get offended if you look at them the wrong way or speak out of line and it blows up into a media fire storm (Chik-fil-A anyone?). If we want to make a change we should do so like Paul tells Timothy, "patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness."  and you know why? Paul tells us so that "God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil...". I think the key thing in these verses is that after repentance comes knowledge. We can't shove scripture in the faces of those that don't believe because to them it doesn't make sense, they don't know it and won't be willing to accept it. They need to know the Author before they can know and accept the content. All in all, sharing the gospel should be our goal, only by doing this and fulfilling the great commission will we see change in our world. 

I am by no means perfect and I know that I need to work on this as well. And I pray that the Lord will work in my life and my heart daily and mold me and shape me into His image.

I guess I'll touch on the other verses next time since this got pretty long. 

Father, I pray that you help me to focus on sharing the Gospel and sharing You with others instead of focusing on their sin. I pray that you show me sin and areas in my life that need improvement and that I look at the log in my own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else's. Grant me patience and gentleness when sharing my beliefs and sharing your truth, but also give me a spirit of boldness to declare with my lips all your wondrous Words. Amen!