If the world looks down on you and despises you because you love God's commandments, and show this before their eyes, you may be sure that you are going to be troubled and have anguish. The psalmist experienced this and wrote in Psalm 119:143, "Trouble and anguish have taken hold of me: yet Thy commandments are my delight." One of the reasons why we have it so good for our flesh is that we do not show our faith in God as clearly as we should.
Ask yourself how often and clearly your light shone yesterday before the world. Can the world tell by your speech and by your dress, by your actions and by what you refuse to do, that God's commandments are your delight? It is not simply a question of what you do outwardly. But do you delight in God's law?
There surely is much room for us and great need that we pray with the psalmist: "Give me understanding, and I shall live" Psalm 119:144. For we must understand what the law of God means and requires of us in every circumstance of life, there is no denying of the fact that our lives today are so much more complicated than they were in the days of the psalmist. With magazines and books, radio and television, automobiles and airplanes we can do so much more, and the world is so much closer to us.
So much that is called Christian today is actually anti-christian. So much is allowed by churches that was rightfully called sin in ages gone by and by those who did indeed delight in Gods law. We do indeed need to pray for understanding. Well may we sing:
Delight amid distress and pain
Do Thy commandments give:
Thy word is righteous evermore,
Teach me that I may live.
The idea is that we live when we walk in God's holy law. Any works outside God's law are acts of spiritual death. And if we live in God's law now in this life, we have the assurance that we will have everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven when Christ returns. All our enemies will be far removed from us forever.
Read: II Corinthians 6
Psalter versification: 338:4
(Words and Music of the Psalter)
Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism
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Song for Meditation: Psalter number 276
Why not sing along??
Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Jeremiah 51:54-64 ; Jeremiah 52:1-34
Titus 3:1-15
Psalm 100:1-5
Proverbs 26:18-19
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Quote for Reflection:
Standing before God as beggars, we will find that He fulfills our every need, the greatest need being the knowledge of salvation in Jesus Christ. Receiving this, you and I are blessed, yea, happy, for being poor in spirit we are eternally rich. — R. Miersma, The Standard Bearer, vol. 77, p. 4
