Meditating In God's Statutes

Psalm 119:23,24 

    To listen to what one has to say, and to do as you are told, is one thing,  It is quite another thing to meditate on what someone else said. To meditate is to give serious thought. It is to turn over in your mind, seriously to strive to understand as fully as possible, the implications.

    Of this the psalmist speaks, when in Psalm 119:23, 24 he states,  "Princes also did sit and speak against me: but Thy servant did meditate in Thy statutes. Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.''  Here he tells us that the fruit of meditating in God's statutes is to find delight in them as God's testimony to us, and to listen to them as good counselors. We may be sure that through serious study, delving into God's testimonies, we are not going to hate those laws but let them counsel us as to how we can walk as citizens of Christ's kingdom. We will find delight in those statutes. As he said before, we will behold wondrous things out of His law.

    All this is true because when a born-again child of God meditates in God's statutes, he meets God. These statutes are not merely His testimony that He is the sovereign God to whom all creation belongs, and Who dwells in majestic holiness. If that is all, your old nature will make you hate Him and His law. But no, meditating as a believer, you by God's grace behold wondrous things out of His law and what His Son has done for you. You will see that He did not come to destroy that law but to fulfill it as our Head and Redeemer. You will see a law fulfilled, and your soul will sing:

    I on Thy statutes meditate, 
    Though evil men deride, 
    Thy faithful word is my delight,
     My counselor and guide.

    Do not let the derision of men and their ridicule make you despise that law. Let it show you what a holy, righteous God we have, and what a loving, powerful Savior He gave us, Who blotted out all our sins and makes us desire to walk in love before God, and delivers us from all lawlessness, to walk as God counsels us.

Read: Psalm 19 
Psalter versification: #323:4

Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism

Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
I Samuel 24 
I Samuel 25 
John 10:22-42 
Psalm 116:1-19 
Proverbs 15:20-21

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Quote for Reflection:

   … our life is framed aright, when this sacrifice is so made as to be pleasing to God: he brings to us at the same time no common consolation; for he teaches us, that our work is pleasing and acceptable to God when we devote ourselves to purity and holiness.        – John Calvin