While this stanza is more of a celebration of God’s Word, it is confrontational for me. Can I identify with his sentiment? Do I love God’s Law? Do I celebrate the wisdom of His commandments? (gulp) Do I meditate on His Word all day??? Clearly, I have some work to do!
In the Western world, we have adopted an attitude that knowledge and information is power. Yet, God’s church struggles to embrace the wisdom of God. We are driven to learn and know, but our multiple translations of the Bible sit on our shelf and just becomes something we take with us on Sundays “just in case we need it.” Now, I know some of you are better than me at this. I have gotten lazy because on Sundays they put the verses up on the screen, so I don’t even have to open the digital copy on my phone. I’m trying to be better about it; it’s a work in process.
In other parts of the world, especially where they have just learned who Jesus is and are being discipled in the Way, God’s Word is treated like gold! It’s the greatest treasure they could ever behold! Check out this video from Papau New Guinea, where Wycliffe has been working with the local community for 30 years to translate the scriptures with them! This is the ceremony where they receive their first copies of the New Testament (yeah, the Old Testament is still being translated).
When I first watched this, I was brought to tears by how happy they were because they could finally read and hear God’s Word in their own language. I have access to over 20 versions in my own language, and I don’t celebrate it in any way as they do…let alone revere it the way the psalmist does. In some congregations, everyone stands up during the reading of the Word in reverence of its power and importance.
An exhortation like that is just browbeating if it isn’t accompanied with a solution. I believe God has pushed me to start writing again as a way to get back into reading His Word deeply on a regular basis, but what else can I do? Daily verse reading. Reflection, meditation, and a dedication to following what it says. How can I follow what it says without knowing what it says? Then, once I know what it says, how do I put it into practice in my life? Afterall, the psalmist here isn’t talking about knowing God’s precepts, but using them to guide his life. Wisdom is knowing how to put what we know into practice.
In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul describes the armor of God and calls His Word the sword of the Spirit. A weapon is only effective if it is actually used. Carrying a sword without unsheathing it might as well just be a hunk of steal strapped to our waist. Additionally, once you pull it out, if you have never practiced how to use it or exercised your arm to wield it effectively, how well will you do in battle when needed? The psalmist talks about victory after having used God’s Word in his life, not just by having it with him.
If then, we would like to be able to identify with him in this stanza, we must take care to do as he did:
Meditate on it every day
This means to ponder, ingest, and process what it says
Observe God’s precepts
This means to not just know what God tells us to do, but commit to doing it
Not turn aside from His ordinances
Let’s not make excuses or exercise cheap grace and be disciplined to follow God and put Him first
Hate every false way
Relentlessly remove sin from our lives
Comment below and speak out loud what your first step will be. We all need to be better at this, but how committed are you to following God’s Word so that you too can:
Be wiser than your enemies
have more insight than your teachers
Understand more than the aged
Restrain your feet from every evil way
and be taught by God?
For myself, I commit to increase these ponderings every week! I will still only publish twice a week, but personally I will increase my deep bible study (and thus writing) so as to glean more from God’s precepts.
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My first step is being more committed to doing what God tells me to do. A lot of what God has told me to do over the last several years has been hard and I’m tired of the hard. Therefore, sometimes I don’t wanna do what God tells me to do but I’m going to try to be more committed to that.