Praising the Word, Day 18 We all need God’s Word. Read Psalm 119:137-144. Everyone needs God’s word. Sometimes, we start to think that we are so good that we don’t need to bother with following through on God’s word. And sometimes, we tend to think that we’re so terrible that we couldn’t possibly do God’s word. The psalmist reminds us that it doesn’t matter what we think of ourselves, and it doesn’t matter our status or station, we all need God’s word. The psalmist knew that, compared to God, he was nothing, but that didn’t change the fact that he needs God’s word. Are we willing to seek after God’s…

Praising the Word, Day 16 Why the wait? Read Psalm 119:121-128. There are a lot of things that I enjoy about the psalms, but one of them is the raw emotion that is often conveyed through the psalmists. Here we really understand that the psalmist sees the injustices and sin running rampant through the world and wants to understand why God has not acted yet. When we see our world and the condition it’s in, it can truly infuriate us. We don’t understand why God allows sin to happen. We don’t understand why it seems like evil prevails through our world, and we want God to act. We want him…

Praising the Word, Day 15 Who do you spend time with? Read some 119:113-120. I remember my parents constantly telling me as a teenager that I needed to pick my friends with caution. I needed to be wise about who I chose to spend time with because I would be like them. Here, we see the psalmist saying essentially the same thing. He’s making a choice not to spend time with evildoers because he wants to do things that glorify God. That choice is going to help them psalmist to be able to spend time with God. And it will make following God’s commands easier. You see, my parents were…

Praising the Word, Day 14 The lamp. Read Psalm 119:105-112. I love the idea of God’s word being a lamp. Obviously, the initial reference makes me think of the light that helps us to see where we’re going and gives us direction and focus. While all of that is true, one thing that made me stop, and think about a lamp is the fact that in those days, a lamp didn’t really light very far down a path. If I was holding a lantern at the beginning of a path, I would probably only be able to see 2 or 3 steps down the path. I would not be able…

Praising the Word, Day 13 Wisdom. Read Psalm 119:97-104. What gives us wisdom? We know and have read many other places that God is the source of all wisdom. Godly wisdom will trump human wisdom every single time. So how do we get Godly wisdom? We find the answer here in this verse. God’s word is his wisdom, and by reading it, studying it, and applying it, we can experience and benefit from the wisdom of God in all areas of our life. Are we seeking God’s wisdom? Are we spending time reading and studying his word? We can be wise only through God and his word. How much time…

Praising the Word, Day 12 No end. Read Psalm 119:89-96. Gods word endures forever. No list of the attributes of God or his word would be complete without talking about the eternity of God’s word. God’s word is everlasting and there is nothing that will endure beyond the word of God. God’s word is everlasting, because God himself is everlasting. God will endure forever. Because God endures forever, the attributes and characteristics of God are also enduring forever, including his faithfulness. God’s faithfulness will continue through all generations. We can count on that. God’s word testifies of the nature of who God is. We can trust him and we can…

Praising the Word, Day 11 Hope. Read Psalm 110:81-88. Life can be very difficult and challenging. We can experience trials and struggles. There are several situations that we will face in our lives that are hard. We know that God is going to provide salvation, but it can be hard to wait for that. The psalmist knows this. He expresses the same frustration that we often feel many days. We know what it is to have our heart feel faint. Still we have hope. Our hope is in the Lord. We can have hope, even if we don’t see it. That is the nature and essence of hope. We have…

Praising the Word, Day 10 Find your friends. Read Psalm 119:73-80. Living the Christian life can be hard and sometimes lonely. When we are standing up for the things of Christ, we will often find ourselves going against the “normal” or the “common” thoughts and principles in the world. However, we are to stand together with other believers. As the psalmist notes here, we are to rejoice around other believers. We are to be the encouragement for other believers, just as they are to be the encouragement for us. For all those of us who put our trust in the Lord, we can have hope and joy in the Word…

Praising the Word, Day 9 What is valuable to you? Read Psalm 119:65-72. There’s an old saying that if you want to know what is important to someone, take a look at their spending habits. You can review a bank statement or any kind of record of spending habits and get a pretty good idea of what’s important to someone. If we think something is important to us, we will spend money on it. The same could be said about our time. If you want to know what’s truly valuable to somebody see how they spend their time. Today, the psalmist is talking about how important God’s word is, that…