Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to see a lyrical video of Amy Grant and her friend and former tour pianist and now Contemporary Christian song-writer and star, Michael W Smith singing … Thy Word Is A Lamp Unto My Feet, which is the declaration of the Psalm 119, the Psalmist who knew that God’s Word was our God-given “GPS” in life.
=============
Highlight Passage: Psalm 119: 105 … [NKJV] …
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
============
Highlight Context #1 - NKJV: Psalm 119: 97-106 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK…
============
Reference Passage #1: Psalm 1… [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK ... Blessed is the man who meditates in God’s word day and night …
Reference Passage #2: Luke 9: 23 … [NKJV] …
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. … “
Reference Passage #3: John 14: 21 … [NKJV] …
21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
Reference Passage #4: 2nd Timothy 3: 16-17… [NKJV] … … Paul’s exhortation of truth about the power of God’s word to mark our path through life …
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by David McCasland, who used the following illustration to make a point about Bible meditation …
"Dave Sobel’s award-winning book Longitude describes a dilemma faced by early sailors. They could readily determine their latitude north or south of the equator by the length of the day or height of the sun. Calculating east/west longitude, however, remained complex and unreliable until English clockmaker John Harrison invented the marine chronometer. This was “a clock that would carry the true time from the home port . . . to any remote corner of the world,” thus enabling sailors to determine longitude. "
McCasland’s point is that we humans, trying to navigate this voyage through life, need a mechanism to help us reliably find our way. In today’s world, we’re a lot better off in navigation than were the ancient mariners; … we have “GPS” devices which can help us find our way down the highways of life quite accurately. But we Christians have THE BEST life navigation system, The Bible, which the author of Psalm 119 in the highlight passage above called, and today’s song with Amy Grant singing about, God’s word’s being … “ a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”
The question becomes, … Do we believe the Psalmists in Psalm 1 and Psalm 119, who were directing God’s people to MEDITATE on God’s word “day and night” so as to navigate through the murky and difficult pathways of life?”
These writers had discovered, and were sharing the same truth that Jesus was later trying to get across to His disciples, … that we must follow HIM and His commandments (see Luke 9: 23 and John 14: 21 above) to make it in life. And God has given us His word as His best “GPS” to navigate our way through the morass of fog we call life. That’s what the Apostle Paul was trying to get across to his protégé, Timothy (and to us as well), in 2nd Timothy 3: 16-17, copied above.
The Hebrew word, used by the Psalmists, to describe “meditating” is “habah.” which according to today’s ODB devotional means “to reflect deeply” … or even better … “to be preoccupied with.” And that is what the Psalmist who so loved God’s word [see Psalm 119 linked above] was trying to convey; … that we who desire to make our way through life, which can be so directionally challenging, are to stay focused on God’s truth, His way, and His will, through His word. That’s how God wants to be our direction finder.
I’ll leave it to you to decide whether God’s word is your “GPS” in life. I think you know, by my presence here EVERY MORNING, diving deeply into God’s truth, that I do.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, show me Your way clearly from Your word. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread [TGIF], distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you’ll find a link to read the Our Daily Bread blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
No comments:
Post a Comment