Psalm 119:161-168
SIN AND SHIN
161 Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words.
162 I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.
163 I hate and abhor falsehood, but I love your law.
164 Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous rules.
165 Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.
One of the many things we call this reality is that it’s a ‘dog-eat-dog’ world, where it’s every man for himself, and while I’ve seen it was a whole lot more subtle when I was younger, today it feels as if it’s awfully blatant: People are stabbing each other in the front now, stepping on each other and not giving a hoot, as long as they get the advantage.
That right there was probably me giving ’cause’ for anyone to try to steal from us, kill us or destroy us, but, as the Psalmist writes, there is the possibility that some people out there – and not just ‘people’, but (possibly even more spiritual than human) princes are out to ‘get’ us and to persecute us… for no real reason.
But as we read (and as we have been reading), the Psalmist follows the sad fact with a hopeful truth – the Words of our God are still awesome, so awesome in fact that our hearts (and the rest of our being) leave us not only focused, but in awe of Him.
Finding relevant words, or beholding true revelations would have us rejoicing as one who finds treasure, or ‘great spoil’. Indeed, we’ve come to a point that the spoil is far from being great and more ‘spoiled’, without it having any real value, any eternal value; In other words, it’s the word of God that adds value to anything else we have in this reality.
We hang on to the word of God, and we ought to prioritize it more than anything else – simply because the value we derive from it is not of this world, and infinitely superior to anything we say is precious or of priority in this side of eternity. Simply put, the Words of the Creator are of far superior value compared to all of Creation.
Do we go as far as to ritualistically praise our Father, for His ‘righteous rules’? No, I believe that through Christ and His finished work, we go far further than what we could do on our own – for, see, more than the ‘righteous rules’, we have been literally (and legally?) declared righteous, by way of Christ and His finished work. Furthermore, far more that our beholding and praising the righteous rules as one would behold and be in awe of, say, a painting, a sculpture, or in this case, a codex, a collection of writings of His words – far more than any of this, we have the Holy Spirit who convicts us, that we believe that we not only have the Word before us, as in to read – no, we have the Word of God WITH us, present with us… and even MORE than that, we have the Mind of Christ!
Because we have the Word of God alive in us, and because we have the Mind of Christ, we have a greater cause and reason to be resilient against all that would make us stumble in this finite existence. But more than this, the everlasting love of God has us in eternal and outworldly peace, a peace that is unfathomable by finite human reason, a peace that goes beyond all understanding. We have peace, knowing we have the Living Word, and the Word is alive in us.
166 I hope for your salvation, O LORD, and I do your commandments.
167 My soul keeps your testimonies; I love them exceedingly.
168 I keep your precepts and testimonies, for all my ways are before you.
We give glory and honor, now and forever, to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – for, according the Father’s will, through the finished work of the Son, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we not only have access to Scripture, but we have an intimate relationship with the Word of God, and the Living Word.
And there’s another thing – Because of all that Jesus Christ has done, we’re challenged to go further than to have head knowledge of God – no, our Savior paid such a great price, so that we can go beyond merely knowing about God, but we now KNOW him – that is, beyond trying to ‘contain’ Him, we have an intimate relationship with Him, so close that we dare to call Him our Father, as the Holy Spirit alive in us would have us do.
And that’s one other thing – we enjoy the Word of God, and we hold it close to our hearts, because it reminds of how the Creator of the universe and all things seen and unseen has held US close to His heart. We enjoy the Word of God because it reminds us of our absolute reconciliation of the Maker of Time and Space, guaranteed by the finished work – the birth, death, resurrection and ascension – of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
The Word of God points to Christ, and Christ points to the Word, revealing its value for us in every season.
So I thought I’d go ahead and churn this out before I headed out to another fellowship this afternoon. I wanted to try to hit 100000 words before the end of February, but that’s looking more and more to be an impossibility. Oh well. We’ll probably be doing a whole lot better this March, anyway.
Really quick: As this month draws to a close, I’m realizing that the stakes are so much higher, but the Lord has ALWAYS been faithful to us, no matter what we see, observe and/or assume about our existence. He is with us, never leaving nor forsaking us – He deserves all glory, honor, and praise.
Until the next post, may the Lord continue to bless us greatly, and magnificently.
Amen, and amen.
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