Standing in Awe

DEVOTION

PSALMS

STANDING IN AWE

Ps 119:113-120

113 Samekh

I hate double-minded men, but I love your law. 114 You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your word. 115 Away from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commands of my God! 116 Sustain me according to your promise, and I will live; do not let my hopes be dashed. 117 Uphold me, and I will be delivered; I will always have regard for your decrees. 118 You reject all who stray from your decrees, for their deceitfulness is in vain. 119 All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross; therefore I love your statutes. 120 My flesh trembles in fear of you; I stand in awe of your laws.

NIV

Day fifteen in the longest psalm. Just what is a double-minded man? The Hebrew word means one who is ambivalent, who has a divided mind, halfhearted. That sounds a lot like this divided heart issue we have seen before. Someone who is not sold out to Jesus. Someone who sort of lives like a believer, but is sort of not living like a believer as well. Someone who is sort of just giving God lip service, but does not spend much time in his word, studying his word, seeking out truth to live by. Someone who really does not put all their trust in the Lord, they act as though they put just as much, or more, trust in their abilities. But how can we hate people like that? The psalmist hates, we have more of a tendency to pity people like them for we love the Lord and his law, Jesus. We do not want a double mind, or a divided heart. We want all our hope to be in the Lord, not in ourselves and that includes every aspect of our life. It would seem we should not have anything to do with the evil doer, those double-minded ones, at least we should not allow them to infect us with their worldly ideas. Instead we should be around them in order to infect them with the truth of God. Yet the fact remains we will trust in him and we will keep his commands. As we make our way, living in the world, but not living as the world, we look to the Lord to sustain us according to his promise. We have to work in the world, we are required by the Lord to work for our sustenance, to labor, to toil the ground, so to speak, all the days of our life. This is the command he made of Adam because of his disobedience. As descendants of Adam in the flesh we have to follow that command. As descendants of Jesus, not in the flesh, but in the spirit, we must follow his commends. Loving the Lord with our all, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Paul speaks about this same thing, in that we do not live under the law, even the Ten Commandments, but living in love covers them all. Loving means never doing any harm to them, that covers all the laws. So we look to God, we always want him to uphold us. We live by faith in him. He is the only one who can deliver us. We will always consider his ways first. He rejects those who don’t, who stray away from him, who look to self instead. We cannot live being deceitful, especially to the Lord for he knows our thoughts, our inner most secrets. We cannot pretend to be holy and righteous. The pretender will be discarded like dross. Therefore we love the Lord, we love his ways, we tremble in fear, in reverence of him, we stand in awe of him, we stand in awe of Jesus.