Daily Meditations

Psalm 119:151 His Word is true! Sometimes, it is extremely hard to discern truth. Human truth is very subjective so that a person can argue that what they are saying is 100% true but others have a completely different, and equally persuasive, account to give. The Book of Proverbs talks about,  “A way that appears to be right, but in the end, it leads to death.” Proverbs 14:12. It is so easy to be deceived, deception is all around us. Politicians and other leaders can argue very convincingly for a point of view, but we all realise that their arguments are based on a particular dogma or way of seeing the world. They may be true to themselves, but is their outlook the absolute truth? Of course it isn’t, there is only one Being who knows all truth and who is able to make judgements that are wholly and completely true, it is God alone. His commands are totally trustworthy (v86, 138) and they are absolutely true (v142, 160). As we have often commented, our God does not sit resplendent up...

Psalm 119:150 The schemes of the wicked My wife and I were musing the other day about the variety of people that we had worked with throughout our careers. From Day 1 it was clear to me that I didn’t really fit in, that the agendas that most people set and the games they played were complex but usually self-interested. There were always those who, in the interests of career advancement, would use any means to undermine rivals and to climb over whoever got in their way. Others had little inclination to work and did as little as possible but played up to their superiors at every opportunity. The list of devious practices is a long one and rather depressing which leads me to agree with the psalmist that,   “Those who devise wicked schemes are near.”   In some situations, it becomes very hard to know who you can trust and what are the rules of the games that many are playing. It is very naïve to assume that people really are what they appear to be, that is why a church fellowship ...

Psalm 119:149 The voice of love Two measures are being used in this verse, and they are both quite profound. Firstly, the author asks God to hear his voice according to His love. Just think about it, there are millions of clamouring voices speaking out across the world, every minute of every day. Many are addressed to God, some in humble prayer, others with profane insults. Most of us hear countless voices speaking to us in the course of 24 hours, but the ones we want to hear the most, the ones that give us greatest pleasure and to which we give the greatest heed, are the voices of those whom we love. It is this attribute of God that the psalmist appeals to, “Listen to me Lord, not because I speak the loudest or because I have the most interesting things to say. Listen to me because I know You love me ….. and I love You.”  In the same way, there is an appeal for preservation and protection. The psalmist hopes that God will look after Him at all times, but he is also aware that the ...

Psalm 119:148 The watches of the night The Israelites had traditionally divided the night into 3 watches, later the Romans divided it into 4. Thus, an Israelite soldier was “on watch” for 4 hours and a Roman soldier got away with 3! This was not just to help with telling the time but to allow the organisation of the guards who were employed to walk the city walls or be the eyes and ears of the military camp and identify any human activity on the outside. Jewish watches were from sunset to 10.00pm, 10.00pm to 2.00am and 2.00am to sunrise.  Our writer could not sleep, his head may have been on his pillow, but his eyes stayed open as he meditated on the promises of God. We tend to view the Law of God as a negative deterrent, a list of dos and don’ts but when we look more closely there is a lot of positivity in those decrees, commandments, precepts and statutes. Their whole purpose is to establish a righteous relationship between men and God, they set out clearly the benefits and bless...

Psalm 119:147 Praise God for the dawn The “dawn” was a powerful and symbolic event in the minds of the ancient peoples. In Egypt, the Pharaoh would rise before the dawn and go down to the Nile and raise His arms to greet the sun as it appeared above the horizon. Many of his citizens of course believed that it was his raising his hands in the air that drew the sun over the edge of the earth and thus began the new day.  When God spoke to Job He asked him, “ Have you commanded the morning star in your days, and caused the dawn to know its place?”  Job 38:12. In other words, God is the provider of each new day, He is the giver of light and life, the day dawns for us all because He commands it.  There is another beautiful truth associated with the dawn, Peter writes about this,  “We have the more sure word of prophecy; and you do well that you heed it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns, and the morning star arises in your hearts. ” 2 Peter 1:19. Pe...

Psalm 119:146 Save me The psalmist seems to be trying to do deals with the Lord God here. In the previous verse, he stressed the passion of his cries and pointed out that if the Lord answered him, he would obey His decrees. Now, he attempts another deal!   “Save me, and I will keep Your statutes.”   Can we do deals with God? Can we bargain with Him? Can we dare to suggest that if He saves us, we will be good, law-abiding people and seek to consistently obey Him thereafter? If that is so, what kind of people might we be if the Lord does not save us? It seems that instead of trying to drive a bargain, the author is actually just stating a fact. All he is asking is that the Lord gives him some evidence that he has been heard, and that help is available from the corridors of heavenly power. And if he has been heard and the Lord saves him, then he will have future opportunities to obey and keep God’s laws. If the Lord does not hear and rescue him, he fears for his future existence....

Psalm 119:145 I will obey! Only 4 more Hebrew alphabet letters left and this is 19 th  and it has a curious name – “Qoph” pronounced “kof.” This is a bit of a strange one, it can mean the back of the head, the eye of a needle and it is also the word for monkey! In a deeper sense, it has to do with removing the outer coating of the superficial to reveal holiness within! Notice that the verse before us expresses the writer’s longings in a more demanding way than we’ve been used to. It’s as if he anticipates the end of the Psalm and is becoming more desperate,  “I call with all my heart; answer me, Lord.”  We have seen that his pleas are caused by his own sinful plight, his failing health, and the vitriolic abuse of his adversaries, he is like a man who finds himself floating in the open seas, clinging tenaciously to some kind of buoyant object but becoming increasingly aware that the situation is getting more critical by the minute.  It is the unshakeable trust of the ...

Psalm 119:144 Understanding gives life  and unAs we have seen, the author of this palm took delight in God’s laws because they were all he had that allowed him to draw near to God, to God’s thinking, to His righteousness. He took delight because this was the principal way that God had chosen to communicate with men and thus to know Him meant that you must read, understand and live out the Law. For any man or woman living up to the time of Christ, the way to God was through the written Scriptures, and whilst the history books, the prophecies and the collections of songs and prose were wonderful, the Torah was the crème de la crème. Here was great I AM, speaking directly to Moses on Mount Sinai and asking Him to write down everything that was in His heart. Here was a direct revelation of God in all His glory and here was His mandate for mankind, written down so that there might be no misunderstanding.  Reflecting on all of this, the psalmist writes,  “Your statutes are alwa...

Psalm 119-:143 Your commands give me delight It should be abundantly clear to anyone who reads this commentary, that Psalm 119 is unlike any other Psalm. Some find it tiring, repetitive and uninspiring for the psalmist continuously revisits the same old material, all based on his love for the commands, precepts, laws, statutes, decrees and promises of God. That love of the Word seems to be highly personal because he makes it clear that very few share his passion! Psalm 119 has no compelling new facts to share, no uplifting accounts of God’s past deeds, no insights into deeper spiritual truths, instead we are treated to a verse-by-verse plod through the monotonous ramblings of a man who is fanatical about the laws that God has spoken! Or so it seems. If that sums up your view of this Psalm and many would agree, remember this, God is not a conversationalist, up to this point in human history His communications with mankind have been limited and confined to a few chosen people. The only t...

Psalm 119:142 The everlasting God One of the great blessings of knowing Almighty God is that faith in Him puts us in touch with the eternal. Most people live for the moment, they make judgements based on their immediate situation and the present state of the world. We are all guilty of just seeing things in the “here and now”, of making decisions that are tempered by the day and age in which we live and our own personal circumstances. God invites us to stand aside, to life up our eyes to the distant horizon and to reflect on the fact that He is an eternal God and all that He says and does has permanence and durability. All human history is merely a reflection of the interaction of transient men with the eternal plans of a timeless and infinite God.  As this verse reminds us, His righteousness is everlasting, not one tiniest detail of His attitude to right and wrong has changed since before time began, what God said in the Garden of Eden and on Mount Sinai and through the prophets o...

Psalm 119:141 Being lowly and despised For me, it started at Primary School, the odd snide comment about going to chapel and Sunday School. When you are 10-11 years of age and you haven’t experimented with a few swear words yet, some kids think you are really odd. They “rough you up” and mutter threats every night on the way home from school and you’re never invited to play sport or to become “one of the gang.” Senior School is not much better, fights on the bus and the misery of being ostracized simply because you are “religious” and go to Grammar School when all the other kids failed the 11 Plus. You are despised because your language is clean and because you don’t tell dirty jokes and because you have the temerity to say that you believe in Jesus.  Some years later, in the workplace, the same taunts and sneers are maintained but now they are accompanied by indifference or a cold shoulder, people just think you’re weird if you talk about faith. Faith is for the weak, the gullible...

Psalm 119:140 Loving the promises It could be argued that every Word from God is a promise! His Words never change, His intentions never falter, once spoken no Word from Him is ever redacted or revised. God’s Word does not need editing or updating, it stands for all time and cannot be changed. God first spoke to the earth 6,000 years ago and His first Words were  “Let there be light .” Since then, His promises have been fulfilled and upheld for countless generations, and they have never been disproved. That is why we can rely on His Word and everything it tells us about what will be in the future. Men and women throughout the ages have been able to put their trust in the promises of God and have seen that trust rewarded again and again. Let’s never give up on the Word, let’s build our lives upon the Word, let’s rely on that Word with unwavering faith that it will always come good. Because of the unfathomable certainty that this Word produces, because it is woven seamlessly into his...

Psalm 11-9:139 Zeal for the Lord Zeal and enthusiasm for a cause are powerful tools. Those who lead projects and drive ventures need a generous dose of it, there’s no point in taking on a challenge or a leadership role if we have no zeal! Politicians need zeal. Captains of sports teams need zeal. Office managers need zeal as do schoolteachers, health workers and just about every other kind of occupation. We don’t all have it but its always good to walk in the footsteps of someone who has. Zeal shows that we believe in the cause, that we are excited about its outcomes, and we are glad to be involved. The worst possible reaction is when we try to stir a group of people, or an individual, with our zeal and they take no notice! Every group has them, the ones who simply ignore us or, even worse, those who deliberately talk us down or put obstructions in the way. Most of us have suffered like this and the psalmist felt the same kind of rejection, no matter how zealously he promoted the words...

Psalm 119:138 Righteous and trustworthy It’s a long while ago now, but some of us grew up in a world where God’s Name was honoured, where church was not an irrelevance and where most people had a faith, even if it was misguided or confined to high days and holidays. Children went to Sunday School on Sunday afternoons, every School Day began with a Christian Assembly, churches were well attended at Easter and Harvest as well as Christmas. Sundays were a day of rest and no businesses opened, and sport was played on Saturdays. In my childhood and teens, on summer afternoons on Sundays, we held evangelistic meetings in the open air on village greens and in town centres, and every village had its own vicar or rector and its own non-conformist chapel. How things have changed and with those changes has come a degrading of moral standards and a rejection of God’s statutes by the majority of the population. God is an irrelevance to all but a few and His moral laws are ignored. As a consequence,...

Psalm 119:137 The Lord is righteous Letter 18 in the Hebrew alphabet is “Tsadhe”, (pronounced tsah-dee). The letter got its name from the shape of a fishing hook which relates it to the root word “tzod” which means to hunt or capture. Tsadhe, when written in ancient Hebrew, is formed from a bent Nun and a Vav (representing a humble servant) and then a Yod, representing a hand lifted to heaven. In Jewish minds this all adds up to the symbol of a righteous person who is a faithful servant with his arms raised before the Lord in humility.  The verse before us today reminds us once again, that God is a righteous God. He is righteous in His judgement. He shows Himself as righteous in His laws. He is righteous in His faithfulness, for He blesses those who obey His laws and righteously judges those who rebel against Him. He is righteous in that every word He speaks is true and He is righteous in His covenant promises in that He always keeps His Word. All men may turn to Him and He will be...

Psalm 119:136 Streams of tears In verse 53 of the Psalm we read that  “Indignation grips me because of the wicked, who have forsaken Your law. ” Now, the author goes further, in very dramatic style, as he claims that “ streams of tears flow from his eyes .” As he looks around, he sees the law of God being rejected and openly defied, on every side. Men and women are living as if God does not exist, they are making their own laws, the foundation on which their society is built has been destroyed and people are living as they please. The sacred rules that established Israel as a nation, and the Scriptures that supported and guided their ancestors, have been cast aside and everywhere there is chaos, the pursuit of evil and flagrant rebellion against the ways and the Name of God. Remind you of anywhere? That similar conditions exists in our land and our world today is beyond doubt, but what about our reactions? As true followers of Jesus, as those who believe in the living God and who s...

Psalm 119:135 His shining face In verse 58 0f the Psalm we commented on the apparent impossibility of being able to see the face of God. And yet this intimacy was something that the psalmists, and other writers, craved. The High Priestly blessing, prayed over the people every day, asks that the Lord make His face shine upon them. In verse 58 we discovered that this plea involved more than just being able to see the face of God, which was impossible; I quote,  “ The Hebrew word for face in the Old Testament can be translated “presence.” Now things start to make more sense! Those Israelites who so regularly abandoned the Lord God were being reminded to seek again the presence of God and the psalmist lets it be known that this is his constant quest. When you think about it, a person’s face reveals a great deal about their character and personality even, maybe, their circumstances or lifestyle. The more we seek the face of God and the more we spend time in His presence, the more like H...

Psalm 119:134 Redeem me Lord This is a bit of a puzzling verse! When a man or woman pleaded to be delivered from human oppression it usually signified that they were slaves. If they asked to be redeemed, it meant that there was a price to be paid, their freedom needed to be bought. The circumstances of this psalmist do not seem to suggest he was in slavery. We know that the author was a deep-thinking soul, and he was also oppressed by numerous antagonists, it may be that his cries for redemption were genuine because it felt like he was enslaved.  There is another reason for his cry for liberty, this was a man who was very conscious of his own weaknesses and failings; his heartfelt plea, throughout the Psalm, is that he might understand and obey the precepts of God. Maybe the plea here was for his own inner redemption, freedom from sin that no lamb on the sacrificial altar of the Temple could ever atone for. Freedom from impure desires and thoughts, freedom from the darkness of his ...

Psalm 119:133 Direct my footsteps It’s amazing to be able to look back over our lives and ponder the different occasions when divine leading and guidance have influenced our journeys. At the time we may have had no awareness as to what was happening. The house we bought just came up at the right moment and at the right price, we made the decisions based on facts at the time, only later do we see that the choice was already made for us! We chose that holiday where things happened that changed our lives. We took that job because it just seemed a right point to move on, now we see that it was at a turning point in our lives. Looking back, these multiple coincidences are now seen in a different light, it is as if someone greater and wiser was guiding our footsteps!  I don’t know about you, but I can look back with astonishment and a deep sense of gratitude at the way I have been led and the number of occasions that I have been in the right place at the right time. Throughout all these ...

Psalm 119:132 Those who love His Name When we address someone and ask them to turn to us and have mercy on us, it sounds like we are in fear of them! There’s certainly an element of humble pleading in these words, it’s the petition of a lesser being appealing to One who is higher. And so it should be! When we approach the Lord God and enter into His presence, we are very much out of our comfort zones, just humble servants being granted audience by the Most High. That should be our attitude, but as we draw near we realise that this God is not an overbearing, judgemental tyrant, nor is He a disinterested, unapproachable autocrat, instead He bids us to come close and turns to us, eager to listen and to enjoy our company! This is not God’s attitude to everyone; it is a special privilege and honour given to those who love His Name. There are no exceptions, if we genuinely love Him and love His name then there will always be a welcome, a warm reception and a willingness to hear our concerns ...

Psalm 119:131 Panting for the Word In the previous verse the author was “unfolding”, it must have been an energetic task because now he is panting! It certainly seems that his pursuit of God’s laws has been a demanding endeavour, but the words here suggest that it is not so much physical exercise that is causing him to pant, but thirst! A longing for more, a desire to drink and drink deeply, an all-consuming craving for satisfaction. What a spiritual man he is, that the commands of the Lord God should cause such a passionate yearning. Most of us will find this hard to understand. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the writer, there are no public libraries, no local bookshops, no internet, no media inputs into his life. Access to documents and readable literature is confined almost wholly to the Scriptures and these were often the only source of information and education to all generations at that time. What is more, the psalmist believes these words to come directly from God and that ...

Psalm 119:130 The unfolding of the Word What a beautiful statement! This unfolding of the words of the Lord creates images of clothes being unpacked or a tablecloth being taken out of a drawer and opened up ready to be laid. In other words, the psalmist is describing a process, the Word doesn’t just happen in our lives, we can learn it as children and read it as adults but its deeper treasures, the revelations of the heart of God, have to be unfolded and this takes time and effort. So, what are the processes involved? Firstly we do, of course, need to read and meditate on the Word. There is very little “unfolding” taking place when we grab a Bible as we’re spooning the last few remains of breakfast into our mouths, 5 minutes before we head off to work! Unfolding takes time. Some may be able to just sit quiet and meditate, for many of us there are innumerable distractions all around so it’s best to make notes and provide an outlet for our thoughts.  The key to the Scriptures is inte...

Psalm 119:129 Wonderful statutes! And so to letter 17 of the Hebrew alphabet, and it is “Pe”, pronounced “pay”. The 16 th  letter is “Ayin” which refers to the eyes and “Pe” refers to the mouth. Pe is used in the context of the spoken word and of verbal expression, speech and breath. So, we may see with our eyes, but it is the mouth that gives expression to those insights. It is the power of speech that distinguishes us from other animals that God created, so “Pe” is related of course to memory. You can imagine the fun and games that Jewish sages and mystics have had with the interpretation of this letter over the centuries! To describe God’s statutes, His covenant rules and regulations, as wonderful is unusual, many people have found them restrictive and burdensome. The word wonderful here is normally used to describe the saving acts of God, such as the miracle of the Red Sea crossing or the provision of manna in the desert. However, for the author of this Psalm, similar wonders c...