Written ~ 08-20-2023
Psalm 119:57-61
“Lord, You are mine! I promise to obey Your words! With all my heart I want Your blessings. Be merciful as You promised. I pondered the direction of my life, and I turned to follow Your laws. I will hurry, without delay, to obey Your commands. Evil people try to drag me into sin, but I am firmly anchored to Your instructions.”
When I read a Scripture like this, especially from the Book of Psalms, and every word seems to be taken straight from my own heart, it makes me sit back, nod my head, and just say, “Yep.” How many of us have pondered the direction of our lives? We may not be doing anything overtly sinful, just small things, or what we would consider small and sooner or later our lives have crept slowly away from the Lord’s presence. Each decision we make will either draw us closer to the Lord or push us farther away from Him. When I sit and ponder the hills and valleys, and the dizzying turns of my life, I am very happy that I had that one stable thing: Jesus. Even when I wasn’t pursuing Him with all diligence, I knew He was there.
When we decide to turn and follow Jesus, whether it’s for the very first time or it’s after an extended time away, the refreshing that enters your entire soul makes every one of us lift our eyes towards heaven with thanks and with praise and we say, “Lord, You are mine! I promise to obey Your words!” Our hearts rejoice with the knowledge that we belong to Christ and He belongs to us. The desire to obey His commands and His instructions is poignant. When it says in verse 119:59,
“I pondered the direction of my life, and I turned to follow Your laws.”
I find this verse to be very interesting and compelling. When we are not following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, our direction is away from Him. If you look up from your path, which way are you headed? Do you see the Lord in all of your plans? Do you see the Lord in the activities you entertain? Do you see the Lord as you look down at the path drawn out before you? Or is it the lure of the world that has caught your eye and is leading you down its path? When the realization comes that the path you have chosen to follow isn’t leading to the Lord, it’s time to turn. Verse 119:59 says, “…and I turned to follow…” This is a physical, spiritual, emotional turning, looking towards the Lord and turning to Him, sometimes it means we are turning and running back to Him! Verse 119:60 says,
“I will hurry, without delay, to obey Your commands.”
If you have been a believer for any length of time you already know the yearning in your heart to obey the Lord’s commands. You have the unavoidable desire to seek out His instruction in every aspect of your life. In every heart God has placed a desire, an ache for His presence. Once that heart has been filled with His presence, we seek His blessing, the promises laid out in Scripture become real, they become alive and even more we are grateful for His commands so we can live a life pleasing to the Lord.
Then we come to verse 119:61 which says,
“Evil people try to drag me into sin, but I am firmly anchored to your instructions.”
Unfortunately, we live in a world full of temptation, it may be time to reevaluate the people you are hanging out with, the activities that cause temptation too strong to ignore, a lifestyle that once consumed your wellbeing. When Christ becomes the center of your world those temptations should decrease, do you know why? Because, just as verse 119:61 says, we are firmly anchored to the instructions of the Lord. You might say, to justify your activities, “Well…I’m being a witness for the Lord by spending time with those friends or visiting the old hangouts.” But are you really? There’s going to be a time when you must think to yourself, am I really bringing Jesus to those people? Or am I showing an indifference, that change hasn’t truly taken place in my life? When we are firmly anchored to the Lord, that means we take Him wherever we go. Would you be ashamed to take the Lord to your old hangouts and partake in the activities you once thought weren’t that bad? It’s a challenge, I know. But, in verse 119:57 it says,
“Lord, You are mine! I promise to obey Your words!”
Is that your promise? Is it the desire of your heart to honor and obey the Word of God? The Lord does not want us to come to Him with a justification of our continued sinful actions, He wants obedience. He wants a turning of our hearts towards Him. He wants us to follow Him.
I can honestly say, through the study of God’s Word, digging in every day, I have changed my perspective. The actions I thought were ok, I now realize I was trying to justify those actions with whatever excuse fit my desire to continue doing what was not pleasing to my Lord. I want to be firmly anchored to the truth of the Word of God; I want my heart to be tied around His instructions, so it does not go astray.
My promise is to obey the instructions found in the Word of God. I want to exclaim, “Lord, You are mine!”
~AMEN~