#DailyDevotion We Need God’s Spirit To Do God’s Will
Psalm 119 17Kindly help Your servant, that I may live and do what You say (dabar). 18Open my eyes, and I will see wonderful things in what You teach (torah). 19I’m a stranger on earth – don’t hide Your commandments (mitsvah) from me. 20At all times my soul craves and longs for Your regulations (mishpat). 21You rebuke the proud who are cursed, for going astray from Your commandments (mitsvah). 22Remove insults and contempt away from me because I keep the truths You wrote (edah). 23Even while princes sit and plot against me, Your servant thinks about Your laws (choq). 24Yes, I delight in the truths (edah) You wrote —they are my advisers.
The catechism in its explanation of the 3rd article of the creed says, “I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him.” It then goes on to the Spirit’s work in our life through Word and Sacrament. The 3rd article covers sanctification which most people attribute to good works. But to do truly good works the Spirit must make us good trees that produce good fruits. So the psalmist here, knowing this, prays the LORD to kindly help His servant so that he may live and do what He says. If the LORD does not give us His Spirit through His Word, you might get something that looks like a good work to the world, but God knows better. Sure, it may be better for society and God even rewards it with temporal goods but before God’s throne, if the Spirit isn’t the source, it is still sin.
The LORD Jesus opened the eyes of His disciples and we need Him to open our eyes to understand and see how wonderful His teaching (torah) is. When Jesus teaches the Sermon on the Mount and the Plain, many people who don’t believe in Him think it sounds pretty good but they also think that is all there is to it. With the Spirit’s help we will see He is behind us living such lives that are commendable before God.
We are strangers, i.e. foreigners upon this earth when our faith is in Jesus. This world is covered in darkness. So we petition our Father not to hide His commandments from us. I find it interesting the psalmist chooses mitsvah and mishpat in parrallel structure and almost chiastically. We have mitsvah, mishpat and mistvah again. The mistvah are things like the ten commandments. The misphat shows us how to carry them out in our lives. We often crave as spiritual people what God commands. It’s not that we are legalists. We love the One who commands it.
The psalmist keeps the testimonies e.g. the pecularlarities of the covenant. I would think that this would be the numerous and sundry sacrifices, rites, rituals but importantly, from the heart. He is apparenlty insulted for this. He asks the LORD to remove insults and contempt he has received from this. We may at times be insulted and held in contempt because we fastidiously try to do all the LORD instructed us in His sermons and the writings of the apostles. When we do it out of love for the LORD we should not care.
While others, in this case princes plot against the psalmist, his focus is one the statutes of the LORD. He could go off and try to rid himself of these people or seek revenge on these people by breaking the statutes. Instead, he ponders God’s statutes. He delights in the truths, the testimonies the LORD has given him. I’m thinking these testimonies would be how the LORD had dealt with His people in the past as witnessed by the Torah, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. He looks to the statutes and the witnesses as advisors. How did the LORD act back then when the people obeyed Him and when they did not? This would guide how we proceed. What did Jesus leave us as statutes and a witness? Let that be our advisor today—though Paul certainly also points us to the Israelites as our example in 1 Cor. 10:11. Let us pray the Father to give us His Spirit that we may understand, believe and do all that is His will for us.
Heavenly Father, give us Your Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament that we may understand Your will for us and the power to carry it out. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.