psalm_67

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Obedience to the Law of the Lord

Psalm 119.9-16

Good News Translation (GNT)


  9  How can young people keep their lives pure?
   By obeying your commands.
10  With all my heart I try to serve you; keep me
   from disobeying your commandments.
11  I keep your law in my heart, so that I will not
   sin against you.
12  I praise you, O Lord; teach me your ways.
13  I will repeat aloud all the laws you have given.
14  I delight in following your commands more
   than in having great wealth.
15  I study your instructions; I examine your
   teachings.
16  I take pleasure in your laws; your commands
   I will not forget.

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Commentary taken from 'word-on-the-web'
supplied by Scripture Union


'To offer a life fully focused on God's Word'

Poets have often set themselves demanding tasks, such as writing sonnets, in order to express their love and devotion to their beloved.

Psalm 119 is like that. It is clear that the writer is not offering fancy phrases to God. Rather, he wants to offer a life fully focused on God's Word and obedience to it.

The Word of God is his best hope of living the kind of life that he desperately longs for, a life that pleases God.

We are called to follow the Lord, walking in his ways, rejoicing in doing his will, playing our part in making a better world. This psalm is a very long hymn, praising the law of the Lord, and at the same time it's a prayer that we will seek to learn and inwardly digest all his precepts and commands so that we are obedient disciples in every part of our lives.

How do new Christians learn to make judgements about right and wrong, good and bad?

Which commands, what laws, where do I find them? The first answer is that we need to know our Bibles well enough to extract guidance on the whole range of issues that come up in daily life; medical ethics, use of money, environmental issues, sex and marriage, and much more.

The Bible is so rich and glorious in the way it teaches us - lists of virtues, laws and proverbs, parables and prophetic challenge.

It is not a manual of maintenance, a list of dos and don'ts. The Lord expects us to think things through, to work out what texts mean, to ask whether new contexts change the meaning.

We are told, for example, not to reap to the edges of our fields, but to leave the gleanings for the poor and the alien (Leviticus 19:9,10).

Sounds good, but how do we apply it to our resources today?



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