First Word # 7 Psalm 119:97

Psalm 119:97 (NKJV) ⁹⁷Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

The law is God’s Word in David’s time.  It was the law of Moses the first five books of the Bible.  God has given us more books now in the cannon of Scripture, 66 total. 

His love for  God’s Word brought him to the point of meditating upon it all day.

James Swanson gives us this definition of meditation, “the act. of giving considerable thought about a person or subject, with a focus of responding properly to the information”^[1]

How well are we familiar with God’s Word that we can spend our day thinking about it?  Do we consider what Scripture and it’s principles that apply to what we are trying to accomplish during this day.

In the following three verses the writer of the psalm recognizes three benefits to this meditation. 

They say, ⁹⁸You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me. ⁹⁹I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.

¹⁰⁰I understand more than the ancients, Because I keep Your precepts. (Psalm 119:98–100) (NKJV)

1.   Wiser than his enemies - These enemies would be ones violating God’s laws who God will judge.

2.   More understanding than teachers. – His teachers did not meditate on the testimonies enough to keep them.  They were missing the blessing and facing the consequences not obeying the testimony that God had given to Moses.

3.   Understand more than the aged – They chose not to meditate upon the precepts and thereby broke the covenant of God and would miss out on the intended blessing.

In this passage we are challenged to:

a.   Evaluate our love for God’s law.  What is of more value to us?  What do we give more of our free time to?

b.   Evaluate where our mind is wondering when we are not about a focused task.  Does it come back to God’s Word?

c.   Evaluate our desire to live a life by God’s principles.  Am I concerned enough with pleasing God through obedience that I want to know His principles by which to live?

 My hope for you today is that your love for God’s word would grow to the point that your mind automatically goes to it as you have time to think and determine God’s plan for your life on daily moment by moment basis.

Note: The video version of this is available at www.youtube.com/churchoflitteleton

---

^[1] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament), electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

First Word #6 Psalm 119:78

Psalm 119:78 (NKJV) 78Let the proud be ashamed, For they treated me wrongfully with falsehood; But I will meditate on Your precepts.

What is our attitude when someone treats us the wrong way?  What do we spend our day or days thinking about?

It is very easy when something is said or done to us to begin to reflect upon the situation, to replay the conversation or situation over and over again.  But what does this accomplish besides getting us more upset and preventing us from accomplishing what we need to do because we cannot concentrate.   It causes us to lose sleep and productivity.

Let them be “ashamed” or “put to shame” for they treated me wrongfully with falsehood.  This is something that we can trust God to deal with; we don’t have to figure out how to get them back on our own.  We know from Proverbs that a lying tongue is one of the things that the LORD hates (Pr. 6:17).  God will judge he does not let sin go unpunished.

Further the psalmist states that he would meditate on God’s precepts.  A precept is a direction, a regulation a principle instructing to do a certain action, which is to be obeyed by all in same society of the covenant^[1]

When our mind is meditating on what we are to do in obedience to God rather than what someone else did we can more easily trust God to deal with those who sin against us in their evil.

One of the principles regarding those who treat us wrong that we are to remember comes in the book of Romans .  In chapter 12 verses 17-21

Paul challenges us with the following actions as members of the body of Christ. 

¹⁷Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.

¹⁸If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.

¹⁹Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.

²⁰Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.( Romans 12:17–21)

When we choose to meditate upon how God wants us to respond to others and choose to follow His precepts we can enjoy fellowship with him.  When we fail to meditate upon His precepts and put our mind on how someone has done us wrong we may find ourselves avenging their actions with our own in thereby trying to take the place of God in avenging evil.  Our we so proud to think that we can do God’s job better than He?  We indeed may be at times, but our prayer is that we would walk in obedience as we meditate upon God’s precepts even in light of attacks by others.

Note:  The video format for this is available at www.fbclitteltonil.org/FirstWord.html 

---

^[1] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament), electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

First Word #5 Psalm 104:33-34

Psalm 104:33–34 (ESV)

³³I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

³⁴May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

Our thoughts this week have been on appropriate meditation.  These verses again bring us back to this topic.  Yet, closely associated with meditation is singing.  Do songs, hymns, and spiritual songs have a presence in your daily life?  Singing, humming, and whistling songs that I have learned through my life in church and at Christian camp and Christian school have helped me through many a day.  They help me to get my focus back on God and his abundant blessings in my life as well as His love for me. 

There are so many varieties of styles of Christian music out there that I would encourage you to listen and find multiple ones that challenge and encourage you in your walk.  Most importantly listen carefully to the words to make sure that they can be supported by Scripture.  Unfortunately, there are many songs out there with weak theology or wrong theology therefore,  we should be careful to choose those with good and strong theology.

If you say, “I don’t know where to start.”  Let me encourage you to look up Keith and Kristen Getty’s website and listen to some of their new hymns.  They are full of strong theology and great ideas to meditate upon God.

Why is this important? God wants to be pleased with our meditation and music is a very powerful medium that will help to influence and change our meditation.  Therefore, it is necessary to listen to music and memorize music that will be pleasing to God as our meditation.  This was the Psalmists’ desire, my prayer that it would be yours and mine as well.

May we have a lifelong passion for our Sovereign Creator that drives us to sing and raise our voices in praise to His name.

Paul realized the importance of this in corporate worship as well.  He commanded that we be “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord.” (Eph. 4:29)  In Colossians he further stated, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Col. 3:16)

Not only does singing songs and meditating on songs help us in our daily walk with Christ, but it helps us to prepare to be obedient to these commands that we are to fulfill toward one another.

The video form of this blog can be found at www.fbclittletonil.org/FirstWord.html

First Word # 2 : Psalm 1

Psalm 1:1–2 (ESV)

1Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

2but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

In these familiar verses we are reminded of the blessing that God promises to those who do five things.  Three are negative and two are positive.

The first is that he promises a man will be blessed (happy and content) if he chooses not to walk in the counsel of the wicked.  So we must ask ourselves, “”when I have a difficulty or a problem to whom do I go to receive counsel?  Who do I send my child to for counsel at school?  Do they have Biblical and Godly goal in mind for my children?”

The second negative challenge is to avoid “standing in the way of sinners”.  Do I place myself continually where I am going to be influenced and taking part with those who have no desire to be honoring God with their lives or their speech?

The final negative challenge is not to sit in the seat of scoffers.  Do I avoid placing myself under the instruction and admonition of those who scoff at God and those who don’t live for him?

If I choose to spend enough time with those who are living in opposition to God that they affect my life, I will end up following them in their way.  And the end of the Psalm makes it clear that these “sinners” will not stand in the Day of Judgment, nor with the righteous, but that the “way of the ungodly will perish”

On the positive side, the first challenge is to delight in the law of God.  Can we say that we delight in God’s law?  We might say that we delight in ice cream or chocolate, but what about God’s law.  Is it a drive of our emotions and passions to be able to have time in God’s law, God’s Word?

David’s delight in the law of God brought him to the second positive challenge to have a “blessed” life.  “In His law he meditates day and night”.  When we have time for our mind to wander, to think about whatever it is that pleases us, where does it go?  Does it go to God’s Word?

For those who do, God promises great blessings in this passage.  He says we will be like a tree that never has lack of water so there can always be fruit and that our life will be prosperous, because a life guided by God’s Word will bring glory to God in everything that is done.  Our prosperity may not look like what the world and the ungodly one’s  are looking for, but the opportunity to live for God and glorify Him in our lives is worth the eternity that we will get to spend getting to know God.  For, our present life is nothing but a vapor that quickly vanishes away., according to James in Jam. 4:14  

The videdo of this can be seen at http://www.fbclittletonil.org/First%20Word.html

Just A Thought?

Often in our society today people get the idea that as long as they don’t get caught that whatever they do really does not matter.  Businesses have put up video cameras to help and reveal those who are doing wrong only to have people deny it or make excuses for it.  Yet as we look at scripture we must come to realize that not only to our words and actions matter, but our thoughts matter as well!

If you will take time to read the following passages it becomes quite clear that God knows our thoughts, in fact it tells us that “the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.”  (I Chron. 28:9; Isa. 66:18; Daniel 2; Matthew 9:4; Luke 11:17; I Cor. 3:20; Psalm 19:13-14; Psalm 104:34) In fact, Gen. 6:5 makes it clear that the world wide judgment of Noah’s flood was because “God saw…that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  So not only does God know our every thought, but He is concerned with what we are thinking.

Our thoughts also affect our lives, or at least the consequences of our thoughts affect our lives.  Joshua 1:8 has a great promise to those who meditate upon and act out what God’s Word says.  It says, “you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”  Psalm 1:1-2 has a similar promise that he is “blesses” who meditates on the word day and night.

Other passages of Scripture make it clear that we can guide our thoughts and give inference as to what our thoughts should be upon.   I would encourage you to look at these passages of scripture and consider that what was being meditated upon was God in His splendor and majesty, His mighty deeds as well as His Word.  (Psalm 145:5; Psalm 143:5; Ps. 63:6; Ps. 77:6, 12; Psalm 119:15, 23, 27, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148, Phil . 4:8)

Then, I will challenge you to consider what may be getting in the way of proper thinking and meditation.  Once we discover some of those things we need to work to reduce or remove them from our lives so that we may “bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.”  II Cor. 10:5  Never should we say, “It was just a thought.”