WORD OF LIFE, PART 3 - THE TOUCH OF THE MASTER'S WORD

A 22 PART 21st CENTURY LOOK @ #PSALM 119

Have you ever been desperate for a touch of the “Master’s Hand”?  Do you sometimes wonder where God is, even while seeking and hoping for more and more of His Presence, His Power and His Might in your life? Sometimes He may not respond right away and we feel isolated on a small island of spiritual anxiety, in the midst of an ocean of corruption and despair. This is nothing new. Every Christian feels that way, at least once or twice in their lives and it is absolutely normal. Every strong man or woman of faith had not so much doubt, as questions. Fortunately, as we have questions, He has answers.  He is the God Who said “come let usreason together as men…”

Psalm 119: 17-24 
Gimel

17  Deal bountifully with Your servant,

That I may live and keep Your word.

18  Open my eyes, that I may behold

Wonderful things from Your law.

19  I am a stranger in the earth;

Do not hide Your commandments from me.

20  My soul is crushed with longing

After Your ordinances at all times.

21  You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed,

Who wander from Your commandments.

22  Take away reproach and contempt from me,

For I observe Your testimonies.

23  Even though princes sit and talk against me,

Your servant meditates on Your statutes.

24  Your testimonies also are my delight;

They are my counselors.

This portion of Psalm 119 (verses 17-24) reflects the condition of such a follower of our Great God! Holy Spirit put in the heart of the psalmist to cry out in his spiritual alienation for more Word, more revelation, more knowledge of the Holy. But as you read again, for the fourth time, even more closely, you will notice that what we have here is also an emotional condition.  While it is not severe desperation, we see the human condition of just the weight of the world coming at us in this passage and the immediate reaction to look up and cry out “Be good to Your servant!”

Oh, that we would be like this ideal here. This is where the Word (the Bible) provides the road-map to a destination of true peace and joy.  Here is a person who is NOT living “under the circumstances” but with his soul and spirit resting on God Above. So naturally, he prevails!

Therefore, if the Christian can transcend horizontal and even introspective thinking, God shows us how to respond to the people and things which oppress, overwhelm or just simply beat us down. In verse 21, we can acknowledge that God resists the Proud and gives Grace to the humble. In verse 22, we are taught that we must let God handle those who persecute and hurt us, His people, because their day is coming….even if we never see it.  He Who sits in the heavens…scoffs at them because they have already eternally judged themselves deficient and lacking in standing for Judgment Day. 

Our one role (verses 23b and 24-"Your servant meditates on Your statutes.

Your testimonies also are my delight; They are my counselors") is to stay firmly planted in Truth. We are not just to believe the Bible or even read it from time to time but to let the Word of God be embedded in our "spirit-man" to the point where we can find the perfect bible verse for the time when the convenience store is out of our favorite candy bar!(No kidding). The Word should so invade every atom in our anatomy, that we shine with the glow of Scripture. The embedded Truth of the Bible is now our eternal and ever-present Counselor leading us to pathways of victory, joy and overcoming. The embedded Truth of the Word, at one time we viewed the commands and decrees of God only as terrifying and oppressive. Now, we love ALL of it because we know, now, from our Counselor, His Word equals true joy....and His Word brings us into the flow of a permanent and eternal vertical relationship with Him. 

Glory To His Name!

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WORD OF LIFE, PART 2 - FIGHTING FIRE WITH THE SWORD

A 22 PART 21st CENTURY LOOK @ #PSALM 119

Anyone who tells you they have never been tempted, in the worse way, to sin and knowingly cross the line, is either lying or six feet under in the graveyard. In times where up is down, wrong is right and there seems to be no red line this corrupt group alive today will apparently not disrespect.  We see it everywhere. We see young beautiful female teachers, who spend years studying, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in college fees, throw it all away for illicit lust. We see godless filthy from Hollywood that is so horrible. What they do not comprehend is fifty shades of hell….is still hell. We see institutions of education and even churches misuse their God-given privileges – and they are given by God – to misinform and corrupt God’s children under their care. They do so, under the guise of being "relevant" to the culture and do "outreach"....whatever that means.

While there is an eternal price to pay for these iniquities by the godless, there is a paradigm which stands like the Statue of Liberty before the Christian woman and man. This is one which if applied as directed, not just heals and protects us, but results in delight! Yes! Delight in your life, my life and delight in the Giver of Life – Yahweh.

This is – W.A. – the Word Applied. To comprehend how deadly powerful W.A. is, just ask the devil. He tempted Jesus three times in thedesert, when Jesus was at His physical weakest and hungry and thirsty as a man.He tempted the God Who became man with money, power, riches and more power. Thedevil threw the kitchen sink and all the plumbing at the Lord in the desert.Each time, Jesus knocked the devil flat with the Word of God. Each time, evil and temptation were defeated by the Pure and Powerful Word of God.

The child of God already HAS the ability and is thoroughly capable of staying the course on the straight and narrow. Not just that, we can do so fearlessly and without guilt and with joy….and all this because we obeyed Malachi 2:15 (Guard our hearts).

Check this – the devil not just knows our weaknesses and deficiencies, he knows how to exploit them. If we are exposing ourselves to attack by sneaking a little sin here, and another little one there, pretty soon, he is going to set us up – big league. Even the mightiest preacher has to guard against pride, even if he does not do these things.  God tells us to hide His Word in our hearts. That means we have to not just read and comprehend but remember it!  The section of Psalm 119 which we now progress to, speaks directly to this issue, as we see here in verses 9-16:
PSALM 119:
Beth
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By keeping it according to Your word.
10 With all my heart I have sought You;
Do not let me wander from Your commandments.
11 Your word I have treasured in my heart,
That I may not sin against You.
12 Blessed are You, O Lord;
Teach me Your statutes.

13 With my lips I have told of
All the ordinances of Your mouth.
14 I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on Your precepts
And regard Your ways.
16 I shall delight in Your statutes;
I shall not forget Your word.

ACTIONS:
-    Note from verse 9, that righteous living can only come from living according to the BIBLE - the very living, breathing Word of God.
-    Seeking God is NOT a one time act (verse 10). The inspired writer "sought"...and kept on seeking. This is true meaning of the original language.
-    Seeking in the past as prologue, is NOT the only action the man or woman of God needs to have DONE in the past, but need to keep doing. In verse 11, we see we have had to TREASURED in the past and continue to treasure the Bible and its specific commands from Heaven, with every fiber of our being.
-    To have sought and continue to see...to have treasured and continue to regard as priceless and needfully so....bring immediate results...and will continue! In verse 14, we note that seeking and treasuring lead to REJOICING! Not just that, but it is an active joy that happened when we did the seeking and treasuring and then God guarantees that we will have joy. Not just that, but the word riches in this verse tells us the joy therein, is: oh so dear and divine!
-    Finally, because of the three actions we have just, we are in desperate need of making two significant promises and life-transforming Covenants with God. One, we promise to not just study in depth the Commands of the Commander in Chief of Heaven's Armies, but to "regard" or pay special personal attention to them (verse 15). Secondly, because we have studied and held God is such esteem, we cannot afford the sheer happiness, peace, joy and feeling of well-being we have! It is something we will never lose sight of, forget or walk away from (verse 16)!

This is how we fight the fire of temptation and evil in this world. We do so with the Bible. We do so with confidence. We do so fully backed by the verifiable true and powerful promise of God, the great Giver of Life and all things. Amen. 

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PRAY FOR .....OTHERS

1. Job 42: 7-8: 7 And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. 8 Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”

2. 1 Timothy 2:1-2: Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions,and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

One of the greatest honors and privileges in life is to be asked to pray for someone.  This discussion is not about the usual “thoughts and prayers” we hear from the secular world, which is neither thinking or praying to the only Real God in Heaven – Yahweh – Who only listens to the prayers of those who are saved. What we are called to is an intentional and meaningful lifestyle of intercession or praying on behalf of others.

Two verses are selected here for a reason. First, the account of God rebuking Job’s friends in Job 42:7-8 shows that God Himself commanding His flawed servant Job to pray for this three annoying friends (Eliphaz, Bildad and Elihu) so He (God) would not punish them for not just incorrect theology, but for all the incorrect things they kept attributing to God.

The lesson we need to take from this, can be summed up with the following:

-          God places such a high priority on prayer for others that He intervene to prevent three obvious sinners from certain extreme discipline, which believers sometimes face.

-          God uses even flawed people, who hold incorrect views at time. Job himself said he knew OF God, but did not KNOW Him (Job 42:5-6)…as in have a relationship with the Father, until he was quizzed by Yahweh in Job chapters 38-41. However, while he said some incorrect things about the attributes of God, Job remained faithful . He refused to curse God “and die”, as his own wife told him to and he made a statement which still rings over the millennia. In his distress, Job said about this dire health and personal tragedy “though He slay me, I will trust in Him”!(Job 13:15)….and the immortal lines which became a great worship song “I  know that my Redeemerlives”. God loved this faithful man, warts and all,  just as He loves us in our sad estate…and God made him  (Job) an intercessor to pray for the well-being of others. Job is our example of the saint who perseveres to the end, against all odds and ends up being the go-to-guy when the Lord needs a man (or woman or child) to step up and prayer for somebody else. We should go and do likewise.

The second chosen verse above “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings (or praise reports) be made for all people” (1 Timothy 2:1) is very clear and does not need more analysis. This exhortation comes from the Apostle Paul who was personally appointed by Jesus to take the Good News, the Truth and the Word of Life to the rest of the world outside Jerusalem.  His words, teachings and lectures were already considered to be Scripture by the time Peter was writing His books (1 and 2 Peter). Peter explicitly spoke of this in 2 Peter  3:16. So it would be very wise for Christians to listen, read and believe EVERYTHING the Apostle Paul believes. Therefore what we glean from this is that one of the duties of the Christian – is to pray for others! This is one duty we should never shy away from....so let us now pray:

Our Great Father and God in Heaven,  we are so stunned, humbled, privileged and grateful that You, the Ancient of Days, would call even the most lowly like us, to pray for Your saints. What an amazing thing and paradigm to be called one of the intercessors You would listen to, just as You listed to Job when You called on him to pray for his three wayward friends (in that entire book).  Lord, help us to stay focused on the meaningful things of life, which can only be found in  Your Word of Truth; help us to avoid sin and temptation that we may be able to approach Your Holy Altar with the critical requests of others that we may not be disqualified in our prayers, but be heard by You, for the benefit of others. 

Keep us from the evil one. Keep us from all distractions in this convoluted daily noise and corruption of a perishing world. Keep us from our own selves and our tendencies to go off on rabbit trails and being lost in the weeds, sometimes even when we are praying, so that the wiles of the evil one and the Flesh will not keep us from our appointed time with You. Lord may all that we do be for both Your Glory and benefit of others.  

We can live in this world if You sanctify us in Your Truth and keep us from ourselves. We need You Father because we are our own worst enemy. The evil one has no hold on us if we don’t give him an opening. So help us to help others and by that, ourselves remain fixed on the straight and narrow and by doing so, bring Glory to Your Holy and Mighty Name, and we pray all of this in the Name that is above ALL the other names – Jesus the Messiah, amen.