Welcome to day 2. It’s a beautiful spring day, have you contemplated doing things a little different this year? If you have joined me for day two, then you are out of the norm. You are on the right track. The author of Psalm 119 obviously loved and cherished God’s word. He would have definitely spent the week immersed in scripture study. When you read Psalm 119 in its entirety yesterday did you notice the many different words the author used for the bible? Pam Gillaspie’s study has a great exercise I would love for you to try. It’s called “Marking the Text”. This is a great chance to grab your different color markers and get to work. If you do not have a variety of colors use symbols instead. Here’s how it works, use a different color to make a box around the different synonyms for God’s Word. For example, “references to the word law can be outlined in blue, references to God’s precepts can be outlined in green. By doing this, you will see how often synonyms for God’s Word appear as well as their diversity, ” states Gillaspie. Let’s do this for Psalm 119:1-8, the first block of text.
As you read it becomes evident that this is a man who sees the importance of the law. He treasures it. He obeys it. He delights it it. He wrote 176 verses about it. Does that seem odd? C.S. Lewis wrote, “This was to me at first very mysterious. “Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultery”—I can understand that a man can, and must, respect these “statutes”, and try to obey them, and assent to them in his heart. But it is very hard to find how they could be, so to speak, delicious, ….” But then I think more about the synonyms of the word “law”. These nouns are synonyms to the ultimate noun, the Word of God. And the great apostle John taught us in the very beginning of his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This Word is Jesus. He is the Word. He is the Word that we delight in. Now practice rewriting the verses 1-9 and substitute the word Jesus for the words you boxed. I walk according to Jesus, verse 1. Blessed are those who seek Jesus with all their heart, verse 2. You laid down your son Jesus , and He is to be fully obeyed, verse 3. I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn more and more about your righteous son Jesus, verse 7.
Wow, what a difference a couple thousand years makes. It all comes together. The fulfillment of the law. We now know the law is our master Jesus Christ. Amen.
Your song for today, by Red Rocks Worship, “Living God” You are alive, living and breathing, speaking and healing, fullness and glory, it’s right here before me, you are the Living God. Take the verses from our passages in Psalm 119, pick out two lines, and make them yours for today. Meditate on those God breathed Words.
https://open.spotify.com/track/7FqO3LbB1o4JMcVJNjiNG5?si=eJWdXGkzQxCl1v2PW8REYw
