“Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. I remember your name in the night, O LORD, and keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts.” Psalm 119:49-56
Read this again, and then think back to the conversation Jesus had with the Sadducees about the resurrection yesterday in Mark 12:18-27. It is God’s Word that brings a believer hope. The man who KNOWS the Scriptures and the power of God is NEVER wrong. For like David, we seek God to bring to mind the truths of His promises that have been given to His people which bring hope and life no matter what is going on in our life. It is this truth that is our comfort in our affliction. Through the Holy Spirit bringing to mind the truth, our afflictions train rather than depress. Paul put it this way, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Rom. 15:4)
David reflects on how testy times are, just like Jesus constantly being questioned by the religious leaders of His day. But again it is the Word…the law …God’s rules in which he finds comfort. This is the same place for us to find solace in the midst of this difficult world. In the midst of the insolent and wickedness of the day…during times of affliction and hardship… it is God’s Word that sustains…but more than simply sustains but gives us abundant hope. Jesus kept pointing this out to the religious who neither “KNEW” the Scriptures nor the power of God.
David made God’s statutes into song so that he could remember them …so that he could enjoy them …so that they might cause him to continue to look towards his heavenly home with hope and comfort as he sojourns in this land. In many ways we are all just visitors here, sojourners awaiting the return of the King. As we wait we remember His name…we keep His law and we enjoy His blessing because we keep His precepts. It is in walking in the way of the LORD that we can glorify and enjoy Him even as we sojourner here for a little while. “This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts.”
It may be a cloudy day, but my prayer for you today is that you look to God and His Word for all your hope and comfort.
God Bless y’all today.
In His Grip,
Pastor Mike
