Daily Meditations

Psalm 119:54 Wherever I lodge “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through. My treasure’s all 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.” So says the opening verse of an old song made popular by Jim Reeves, many years ago. There is a Biblical truth hidden here, in Hebrew 13:14-15 we read,  “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.”  Paul refers to us as  “strangers here on earth”  and in Philippians 3:20 we read,  “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.”  The psalmist follows a similar train of thought although he lived long before the promise of a heavenly reunion with Christ. He was a wanderer or “ a stranger on earth ” (see verse 19) and thus he was not at home in any of the kingdoms of this world. He was just a lodger. Despite being an Israelite with...

Psalm 119:53 In defence of God's law There are two very obvious reactions to God’s Laws and to His commands. There is one large group of people who reject the Lord God and His Laws, and then there is a smaller group who honour Him and His Laws.  Many who reject the Laws of God do so simply out of ignorance or just unbelief, it’s hard to convince such people that His ways are best and that they have a responsibility to acknowledge the One who created them. Such people fill us with despair and yes, at times, they make us angry. Why do they continue to ignore the Lord when His deeds and His power are so blindingly obvious? There is another group of people who certainly stir up anger in many of us, these are so-called Christians who constantly challenge God’s ways and assert their own interpretations of His Word. I briefly scrutinized a book yesterday that is written by a number of clergy in defence of the LGBTQ movement. In it the Commandments were questioned and Paul’s writings in Ro...

Psalm 119:52 Remember the ancient laws God never changes! We need to remember that this great Being who first communicated with Adam and Eve, and then the likes of Enoch, Noah and Abraham, is the same God we worship today. His character never changes, His authority and power are unchanged, His wisdom and knowledge are ever the same, and so too are His faithfulness and love towards those who trust in Him. God’s moral character remains unaffected by His created beings so that the Law that He gave to Moses was founded on the same principles that guided His thinking at the beginning of creation. God remains the same God to this very day, and the principles and commands that guided the Israelites are unchanged too.  Because of the above, we are able to trust the Lord God completely. We can read the accounts of the lives of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the godly men and women of ancient times, and see that we are dealing with the same divine Being. His words also remain true, so the...

Psalm 119:51 Who are the arrogant? It’s a description that seems to embrace a great many people. When you think about it, the arrogant could include anyone who does not acknowledge, obey, or worship God Almighty. The arrogant are those who know best, who have their own schemes and agendas, who make their own rules and who think that they do not need to involve the Lord God. They do not pray to Him, they do not see His handiwork around them, they think that they are in control of their own destinies. The arrogant even believe that when death comes, they will be accepted by God, if there is such a Being, because they have not been bad people. The arrogant think that they can proudly parade all their good deeds, their good character, and thus their entitlement to justice from a benign God when they leave this world.  The arrogant trust in the ways of men, they could never humble themselves at the feet of the Lord, any more than they would be willing to acknowledge their sin and f...

Psalm 119:50 Your promise preserves my life Very few people find comfort in suffering. Suffering brings depression, fear, darkness and, in some cases, can even produce a death wish! Suffering asks many questions: Why me? How long? What’s the point? Where is the relief? Who can rescue me? Some suffering is physical and drains our energy and stamina, only being relieved by drugs. Other forms of suffering rob us of sleep, make us very introspective and remove all joy and hope. Modern health care tries to help sufferers in many different ways, but there’s still a battle to be won with our thoughts, in the middle of the night! The psalmist has obviously suffered greatly and may even have faced the threat of death, it is curious to hear him say,  “Your promise preserves my life.”  What does he mean? Obviously, he is hanging on to some word of truth, some directive from heaven that brings reassurance that things are either not as bad as they seem, or the current situation will not la...

Psalm 119:49 The Word of the Lord The seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet is “Zayin.” The word “Zayin” means to arm oneself; it is used of weaponry and consequently, of power. The letter is deliberately made to look like an axe! The next 8 verses, whilst not directly describing warfare, do hint at the struggles the writer endured with his wicked enemies. As we have seen, the Word of the Lord means many things to this psalm-writer. He uses different expressions for different aspects of the Word, and we listed 10 of these at the beginning of this lengthy psalm. There seems to be an element of doubt in his mind that the Lord God will either forget or choose not to recall His Word to His servant! As if! God certainly does not forget and, so far as I can recall, it’s only our sins and iniquities that He chooses not to remember. (Jeremiah 31:34 and Hebrews 8:12 and Hebrews 10:17.) The Word of the Lord here includes, of course, the Law and the Promises of God, and whilst these were delivere...