His Word

Good Morning,

Psalm 119:105-106, 111-112 (NIV)
Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.
I have taken an oath and confirmed it,
that I will follow your righteous laws.
Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
My heart is set on keeping your decrees
to the very end.

Two specific thoughts were brought to my attention as I read the Scripture verses we have before us today. Both seemed to be important, but the first seemed to be a bit more important and led directly to the second.

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." The Bible, of course, is God's word for us today. It is what we ought to use to guide and direct our paths as we live our lives. Okay. That's pretty elementary, I know. But the thought that was put into my mind was asking me whether or not I really READ the Bible and then tried to put what God tells ms in it to use in my life. I'll preface this next with thanks for all who read the words I have the honor of sending along each day. Needless to say, it does my heart good to know that the time and effort I put forth is appreciated. Now, having said that, I have to ask you if, perhaps, what I send along and maybe other devotional messages from other sources take the place of a daily Bible reading program. God wants us to read His Holy Bible. Why else would He have had the Bible put together for us? So that goes without saying, I think. The thing is, many of us have replaced a daily time reading the Bible, and spending time with God, with reading the devotionals we have sent to us by various means or maybe listening to radio broadcasts of some really good preacher or watching some one on the television. Now, all of those things can be good, I would agree. BUT, none of them...NONE OF THEM...can replace reading God's words in the Bible.

The second thought that came to me as I read this Psalm today was about taking an oath and confirming it, as far as it concerns what we read in the Bible and truly believing that God's statues "are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart," and, "My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end."

There's a lot there, I would agree, for us to contemplate and absorb. You know, we sometimes take an oath for various things. We take an oath that the signature we use is the one that is legally ours and when we sign it we agree to whatever, we take the oath, that we will abide by that which we have affixed our name. We might take an oath in a court of law that we will tell the truth in the proceedings where we find ourselves. There are various ways in which we can take an oath in the world today. By taking an oath, what, exactly, are we doing? Webster tells us that a oath is: a solemn appeal to a deity or to some revered person or thing to witness one's determination to speak the truth or keep a promise. So, what David was saying in the verses we read today was the fact that he was promising God, and then confirming his promise, that he would abide by what God had put into the Scriptures that he, David, had at his disposal at that time. I have to ask all of us, myself first and foremost, have we, I, taken such an oath? We don't hear much about that in our various congregations today, do we?

I'm not going to go into any legalistic things about this as I think what God wants of us today is to give thought to what He has placed in front of us and to contemplate, to ponder if you will, the words that He had put into the Bible for us to read.

Do we read the Bible? Are we willing to promise God that we will go along with His wishes as He has had written for us?

Love, peace, and blessings,

David