Focused

DEVOTION

PSALMS

FOCUSED

Ps 119:33-40

33 He

Teach me, O LORD, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end. 34 Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. 35 Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. 36 Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. 37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.  38 Fulfill your promise to your servant, so that you may be feared. 39 Take away the disgrace I dread, for your laws are good. 40 How I long for your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness.

NIV

Day five in the longest psalm. It does little good to learn the decrees of the Lord from another man. In doing this it might be way too easy to either forget what he has said because of his mannerisms or style of teaching or that he teaches something more of human ideas than the true decrees of the Lord. But when we learn from God, when he speaks his decrees into our heart, we will never forget and we will keep them to the end. Again we need to understand what his decrees are. What is a decree? In the Hebrew it is defined in various ways, but the first definition is the main usage and that is a statute, an ordinance, a limit, something prescribed, a prescribed task. This could be a combination of many tasks such as the Ten Commandments, and all the other laws given to the Israelites, in addition we have all the commands or laws given to us by Jesus, or in all the letters of the apostles, or it can be a singular task. We also know that no man can keep all the law to the end for we are all sinners saved by grace, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. How could we even expect to keep all the law, which was never intended to been able to be kept? The law was to show man he needed a Savior. So how could anyone keep it to the end? However, this prescribed task as seen as an individual task, or a calling could be keep to the end. When God puts a calling on us, how can we retire from doing that task? We will keep it to the end. We do not understand how a person called by God to do a prescribed task would plan their retirement, either from that prescribed task or from doing the will of God.  When God gives us that understanding we then will be able to keep his law and obey it with all our heart. Here it is again, direct me in the path of your commands. Again it is this calling by God to walk in a certain path. First that is the path of righteousness, or to walk in the path of Jesus, to be in Christ is the only path to walk, in that it gives us eternal life. But then this path is also the singular path he has called a specific person to walk. Some he calls to become a shepherd, another an evangelist, or a teacher. He calls some to be his voice in the wilderness. Whatever he calls us to, it is all for the furtherance of his kingdom. We do not work or toil or preform our assigned task for our own benefit. This life we live is not for us, but for the kingdom of God. The one who loses his life will gain life, the one who wants to keep his life will lose it. This is the meaning of our life. We live for the pleasure of God, not for our own pleasure. Now can we have some pleasures in life? Sure, God blesses us with many pleasures, both spiritual and material. He provides all we need. He has provided us with so much, in fact one of his promises that he allows us to test him about is in our tithe and offerings.

Mal 3:10-12

0 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. 12 "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.

NIV

We will not have room enough to contain all the blessing of God, in addition all our material things will not wear out. No pests will devour our crops. We will be called blessed. Just think about that. Keeping his decrees brings so much to our life. Living for self instead brings nothing to our life. So we turn our heart toward God, not toward selfish gain. We turn our eyes away from worthless things. How can we say we love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, spirit and strength when we are always looking with a longing for those worthless things? If we seek him first and his righteousness, he will add all those worthless things to our lives.

Matt 6:24-34

24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

NIV

This is one of those decrees, those commands of Jesus, we should keep to the end.

God preserves our life, we cannot. If we try to preserve it we lose it, but if we put God above everything and everyone else we will have the most excitingly blessed life we could ever imagine. This is that contrast between a divided and a whole heart. Let us bless the Lord with a whole heart. Let us focus our eyes upon Jesus.