Sunday 20th October
Psalm 119: 169-176
Let my cry come before you, O LORD;
Give me insight as pledged in your word.
May my pleading gain access to you;
Save my life, as you promised to do.
May my lips overflow with your praise,
For you teach me your statutes always.
May my tongue sing aloud of your word;
Your commandments are righteous, O LORD.
May your hand be stretched out for my aid,
Since by choice your commands I’ve obeyed.
I desire your salvation to see,
And your law is delightful to me.
Let me live and I’ll praise you in song;
May your laws give me help to go on.
Seek your servant who strayed like a sheep,
For your precepts I steadfastly keep.
Reflection
David is reaching the end of this, the longest, Psalm. He continues to refer to the law of God, he has called it different things, here he uses Word, in Hebrew imrah, and this means anything God has spoken, commanded, or promised.
We can echo these feelings of David, we need insight and it is good to know that God has promised this to us. We can rejoice that our lives have been saved, not by our pleading but by the gift of Jesus who God sent into this world.
We can praise God for all that we have learned from Him. We know that God stretched out His hand as we know how He gave us His Son to be sacrificed for us. David wrote that his lips were overflowing with praise, how much more should we be praising secure in the knowledge that we have the Holy Spirit with us at all times. We can praise because we do not need to earn our salvation, Jesus earned it for us.
We do not need to struggle on alone as God does stretch out His arm to aid us. Our salvation has been fully revealed to us. Luke records the words of Simeon who cradled the infant Jesus in his arms and said “my eyes have seen your salvation”. Luke 2:30. We have the word of God revealed in both the old and new testaments. Like David we can praise God in song and while we know that we have often strayed like a lost sheep we can reply upon Jesus, the shepherd, to protect us and lead us gently back to where we can find peace and security with Him.
Prayer
Loving God,
We thank you that we have your word, both the word as the bible and the living word who is Jesus.
We thank you for all your promises to us and for the life that we enjoy in your presence.
We thank you for the love of Jesus and for your Holy Spirit our comforter.
We ask that we will always remember to turn to you when we need help or support
Amen
You can hear, a Free Church of Scotland congregation sing this Psalm to the tune Mulchaich here