Learning at his feet

DEVOTION

PSALMS

LEARNING AT HIS FEET

Ps 25: 8-15

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; 2 in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. 3 No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse.

4 Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; 5 guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. 6 Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD.

8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. 10 All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. 11 For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great. 12 Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him. 13 He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. 14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. 15 My eyes are ever on the LORD, for only he will release my feet from the snare.

16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. 18 Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. 19 See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me! 20 Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 21 May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you.

22 Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles!

NIV

We already said God was good, but again we have to say, Good and upright is the Lord. He does instruct sinners in his ways. This means we cannot get ourselves ready for salvation. It isn’t as if we can clean ourselves up before he instructs us. When we first came to Christ we were an absolute sinner, no question about it. But what about now? Are we still considered as a sinner? Not by God and we should not see ourselves as sinners either. Do we still commit sin? It would seem obvious that we do, but we are not living in sin as sinners do. God has instructed us to take off the old self and put on the new self.

Rom 6:5-7

5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

NIV

Eph 4:22-24

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self , which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

NIV

So then we are no longer a sinner. We were once a sinner saved by grace, but now we are a new creation, made new in the attitude of our mind and we have been created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So in our humility, because of his grace, we learn, we sit at his feet and learn, like Mary did rather than busy ourselves, even in ministry, like Martha did. Sometimes we can get so involved in doing, being spiritual, doing what we call, God’s work, we forget to just take a seat at his feet in humility and learn. Sometimes we think we have it all figured out and we go about doing, rather than seating at his feet and learning his ways. All of his ways are loving and faithful, if, yes there is an “if”, if we keep the demands of his covenant. There are so many covenants he made in the past with Israel or people of the Old Testament, like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, Solomon, and the list goes on. Some of them did a pretty good job at keeping the commands of his covenant. Well, Adam did not at all, and that started this whole business of being a sinner. But today, because Jesus fulfilled all the Law, all the covenant God made with Israel, we are no longer under that law. Jesus did establish a new covenant. Jesus is, in fact, the new covenant God establish with us. By our accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior we entered into this covenant with God. By our remaining in Christ, we are keeping the commands of his covenant. It is also true Jesus told us that the new law, the new demands are to Love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all our spirit and all our strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. How well are we keeping the commands of his covenant? That is why David asked God to forgive all his iniquity, how great they are. David failed to keep all the commands of God, we fail to keep them also. So we ask God, for his names sake, to forgive us for all our failures, all our faults, all our inabilities to keep all the commands of his covenant. Oh we say are in Christ, but do we do the rest? So we need to keep ourselves in fear of God, which is in reverence to him. Then remaining humble, knowing our failures, our imperfection, as compared to God, He instructs us in the way he has chosen for us. That might well mean all of us being instructed in the way of Christ, living as believers, or it might mean individually as to where he fits us within the body of Christ, or where he puts us, as living stones, in the temple he is building, where he dwells. As we seat at his feet and learn, we will prosper, we will live in prosperity. This does not mean live being wealthy, but the Hebrew says it this way; our soul at ease shall dwell. That is prosperity, to dwell at peace with God we can and should pass that on to our posterity, the generations to follow us, specially our own family, so we all will inherit the land, the Promised Land, the paradise of God, the new city of Jerusalem in the new creation. Because we have humbled ourselves and have chosen to sit at his feet and learn, he confides in us and he explains his covenant to us, making it known to us. So we keep our eyes ever on the Lord because he has freed our feet from the snare, the snare of sin, the snare of pride, the snare of greed and self-aggrandizement. He has freed our feet from the path that leads to destruction and set our feet on solid ground, on holy ground. God has done it all. So we have nothing and we remain humbly sitting at his feet, learning.