I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 119.

    This is the longest of the Psalms. It is broken into 22 stanzas. One for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In the original Hebrew each stanza begins with a word beginning with the corresponding Hebrew letter. Each stanza focuses on a different aspect of studying and obeying God’s commands. I am going to apologize now for the inconsistent way the rest of today’s blog is going to be written because I am going to go through this psalm and point out the important thoughts the psalmist brings up.

    Following God’s instructions brings us joy, but we will not find that joy if we compromise between the righteousness of His commands and evil. There is no middle ground. We become able to obey God’s word, and thus remain pure, by memorizing Scripture, speaking Scripture aloud, studying it, seeking God’s guidance to understand it, and rejoicing in following it. We must seek to have God’s Spirit open our eyes to how wonderful God’s commands are, otherwise the spirit of this world will blind us to them. As God teaches us new aspects of His guidance we must put them into practice with our whole heart and all of our being. Let us eek and desire God’s unfailing love. Seek not just His love for us, but to have His unfailing love for others.

    It is not enough to believe in God’s decrees, we must allow God to teach us the good judgement and understanding to follow them as He intends. If we do so, those who wish to malign us will be forced to resort to lies. If we use the good judgement that God will give us if we ask as we follow His directions we will bring joy to everyone who fears the Lord. Our enemies will build traps for us in the darkness, but if we follow God’s instructions they will light a path for us to follow which will take us nowhere near those traps.

    This psalm is quite long, as I mentioned at the beginning, but every time I read it with an awareness of how it teaches us to obey God’s Laws it inspires me to strive to be more faithful. The little nuggets of wisdom scattered throughout this psalm lift me up and bring me down. They lift me up because they show me how to truly live a fulfilling life. They bring me down because they highlight how terribly I fail to do as God instructs, even though I know I would be better off if I did as He says. If we want God’s rescue, we will obey His Laws. Let us seek God’s salvation so that we can use it to bring honor to Him!