Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 119.
Today’s psalm is the longest psalm by far. It is an acrostic poem, each stanza begins with one of the letters from the Hebrew alphabet (in order). The psalmist begins by telling us that those who walk according to God’s laws and seek Him with all of their heart are blessed. Initially I intended to leave it at that, but as I wrote that I realized that a large part of what the psalmist means when he says that is that it is a blessing to follow God’s commands. We do not receive some kind of blessing, such as wealth, fame, or popularity, because we follow God’s law. The blessing IS following His law. The psalmist hid God’s word in his heart so that he could have the blessing of doing what God commanded even when he did not have access to the written word. Further, he meditated on what God has said, and considered what He had done in order to better experience the blessing of doing God’s will. He encourages us to ask God to open our eyes so that we might understand the ways in which God’s law is wonderful. The rulers and other elites of our society will make fun of us and slander us for obeying God’s word, but that is because they do not understand the joy we receive from faithfully following His will. If we study God’s law so that we can follow it faithfully, those who fear Him will rejoice when they see us.
Today’s passage once again reminds me of the value of regularly reading the Bible, the value of disciplining myself to write something about it every day. What I wrote today was something I only realized as I tried to think about what to write. I saw how the psalmist repeatedly talked about those who do God’s will are blessed and was trying to think of a new way to express it when I realized that the blessing we receive from following God’s will is not material things, not is it the praise of people (although we may receive those things from doing God’s will). No, the blessing of doing God’s will is DOING GOD”S WILL. Which is something we get even if we lose everything and are looked down on by everyone. Those who have not experienced the blessing of doing God’s will can never understand the joy which it brings someone.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.