274 Thursday, October 01, 2009

274 Psalms 119.1 – 119.56

Psalm 119 is an unusual in that it is divided into twenty-two stanzas and each starts with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It is is mainly dealing with God's Word and what His word can do for us as His people. We see this very clearly in this phrase:

Psalms 119:9 (MSG) 9 How can a young person live a clean life? By carefully reading the map of your Word.

Our Father knows that our walk with Him is to be an informed walk. God has not left us to our own devices. I love maps because they keep me from getting lost. I love google maps even more. I get very specific instructions from Google maps and have rarely been lost because of the information I have received. Some of you have a GPS system in your vehicle and if you have learned to use you are grateful for the instructions you receive.

We need to develop an appetite for God's ways and His instructions. Here is what Psalm 119 says about this hunger for His Word:

Psalms 119:20 (MSG)
20 My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous!— insatiable for your nourishing commands.

We need to ask God to give us this kind of hunger. In my conversations with people I find that people don't want that kind of thirst because they want to live a free life. They want to be unfettered. In every sport there are rules and there are penalties for not following the rules and yet people want to live their lives without rules or penalties. Life does not work without rules! All of us need boundaries in our life in order to live life to the max.

We are still hearing the words of Jesus. This is His longest message and it is enough for a lifetime of reflection. Truly I could write a paragraph about each line of His sayings and would only be warming up. God wants us to be very, very careful in how we treat others and how we treat Him. We are not to be judging people, but helping them. It is just like this verse says,

Matthew 7:12 (MSG) 12 "Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's Law and Prophets and this is what you get.

Perhaps today you could take the initiative and help someone in their need.