My soul clings to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
I have declared my ways, and You answered me;
Teach me Your statutes.
Make me understand the way of your precepts;
So I shall meditate on Your wonderful works.
My soul melts from heaviness;
Strengthen me according to Your word.
Remove from me the way of lying,
And grant me Your law graciously.
I have chosen the way of truth;
Your judgements I have laid before me.
I cling to Your testimonies;
O LORD, do not put me to shame!
I will run the course of Your commandments,
For You shall enlarge my heart.

This whole Christian life is a cooperative effort, only He gets to do most of the work:
I feel like dirt; He revives me.
I declare my intentions; He answers.
I meditate; He makes me understand and teaches me.
I choose the way of truth; He removes the way of lying.
I cling to His testimonies; He keeps me from being put to shame.
I run the course, keep the commandments; He enlarges my heart in order that I may finish the race.

“I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing.”
II Timothy 4:7-8

Again, I am reminded of how dependent I am on the grace of God. I couldn’t fight or finish or keep the faith apart from Him. And it is fitting the old hymnns picture us “casting our crowns before Him” since any crown that I receive belongs to Him in the first place. (By the way I couldn’t find in Scripture anywhere this idea of our giving back to Jesus whatever reward or gift He has enabled us to earn, but it seems right. After all we offer Him the firstfruits of our labor and the products of our God-given creativity as worship.)
In Him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)

Deal bountifully with your servant,
That I may live and keep Your word.
Open my eyes, that I may see
Wondrous things from Your law.
I am a stranger in the earth;
Do not hide Your commandments from me.
My soul breaks with longing
For Your judgements at all times.
You rebuke the proud–the cursed
Who stray from Your commandments.
Remove from me reproach and contempt,
For I have kept Your testimonies.
Princes also sit and speak against me,
But Your servant meditates on Your statutes.
Your testimonies also are my delight
And my counselors.

Jesus said many times, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” God told Isaiah to say to the people of Israel: “Keep on hearing, but do not understand! Keep on seeing, but do not perceive! Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes. Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.”

I’m an Arminocalvinist myself, firmly on the fence, but as the Calvinists teach, we truly are dependent on the grace of God to open our eyes and deal bountifully with us. His testimonies are not naturally my delight, but I ask Him to make them so. I am just a poor wayfaring stranger; this world is not my home. And if I have no real home here, I am more than ever dependent on the Lord to give me an eternal home with Him.

So I pray that the same Jesus who made the deaf to hear and the blind to see will also give me vision and hearing and make my soul break with longing for His judgements. For ‘in Him is Life, and that Life is the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it.” (John 1:4-5)

How can a young man cleanse his way?
By taking heed according to Your word.
With my whole heart I have sought you.
Oh, let me not wander from your commandments!
Your word I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You.
Blessed are You, O LORD!
Teach me Your statutes.
With my lips I have declared
All the judgements of Your mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts,,
And contemplate Your ways.
I will delight myself in your statutes;
I will not forget Your word.

This writer is really concerned about living God’s way. How do I cleanse my way? I wash myself daily, hourly, in God’s Word. I wash everything I read, everything I see, everything I hear, everything I do, in the cleansing Word of God. Specifically, I think about these things that make up my life in the light of Scriptural principles. How does this or that square with what God has said? I hide His word in my heart, memorize it; I declare it with my lips, speak truth in love; I meditate on God’s guidance, and I contemplate His ways. Then I can delight myself in God’s law and not forget His word.

Lest anyone think this joyful discipline of studying and applying God’s Word to our lives is optional, esoteric speculation, WORLD magazine’s blog gives this example of a man who did not cleanse his way:

And now it turns out that convicted child-molester Joseph Duncan, arrested for kidnapping that little girl in Idaho and the suspect in the murder of her family, talks about his struggle with demons on his blog. “God has shown me the right choice,” he wrote, “but my demons have me tied to a spit and the fire has already been lit.” And then, in one of his last entries, “The demons have taken over.”

“He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:8

Blessed are the undefiled in the way,
Who walk in the way of the LORD!
Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
Who seek Him with the whole heart!
They also do no iniquity;
They walk in His ways.
You have commanded us
To keep your precepts diligently.
Oh, that my ways were directed
To keep your statutes!
Then I would not be ashamed
When I look into all Your commandments.
I will praise You with uprightness of heart,
When I learn Your righteous judgements.
I will keep your statutes;
Oh, do not forsake me utterly!

We’re studying Psalm 119 in our women’s Bible study this summer. Despite what some people think about small group Bible studies (and by extension, individual Bible study?), I believe in the old “priesthood of the believer” idea and that the Holy Spirit is given to all believers to “guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13) Therefore, we can study the Scriptures under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and expect such study to be “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for in instruction in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16) Discussion at Thinklings blog.

Now that we’ve got that settled, and we’ve all come to a happy concensus :), I’ll return to Psalm 119. First the psalmist writes about how happy and blessed those who obey God’s law are. Then he inserts a verse that states that God has commanded us to obey. Then the psalmist wishes, prays, imagines the results, and finally determines to learn and then keep God’s statutes. Section Aleph ends with another prayer: “Oh, do not forsake me utterly!”

I echo that final prayer. My own prayer has often been, “God, please don’t give up on me.” Grace and repentance are big concepts, but at the very least those terms mean acepting forgiveness and setting my will to “walk in the way of the LORD” and “to do no iniquity”–again and again and again.