May 10 – Moved to Follow

““I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” Ezekiel 36:27 (NASB)

The context of this promise is God speaking to His people Israel through His prophet Ezekiel. After having centuries of repeatedly turning from God for pagan non-gods, He was promising that one day He will do for them what they needed to follow His Way always. Those of us who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ have experienced a great change in our lives. God's plan and promise is that when, by faith, we choose to believe in Jesus, God's Holy Spirit is sent to live in us. When Jesus was on earth He made this promise and including several functions which He would fill. One of these promised functions is in today's verse.  The Holy Spirit is living in the hearts of believers to enable us to obey the Lord. As we trust in Him, we learn to sense the impulse in us to do what is pleasing to God. It may be through reading the Bible or hearing the Word preached that our hearts are stirred with the desire to do what God says He wants us to do in His Word. The stirring is the work of the Holy Spirit moving us to follow God's will.

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July 19 – Meditate, Fix, Delight, Remember

“I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.  I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”  Psalm 119: 15-16 (ESV)

As we mentioned, this is the third posting which is from Psalm 119 and it is about the Word of God. The Psalmist uses ten different words to reference God's Word and today there are three besides the word 'word'.  This may differ in various translations but the one we have today uses, 'precepts', 'ways', 'statues', as well as 'word.'  The messages which we find in the Bible were not conceived by human beings.  The human writers were just passing on to us what God knew we all need.  And that is how the psalmist reacted to what God had said.  We notice that he mediated on God's messages, focused or fixed his eyes on what God had said and noticing how He dealt with people.  As a result of thinking about all this, it brought him delight and gave him a desire to pay attention to what God said.  We can do  the same. Meditating, focusing, delighting and determining to not forget what God has given us to help us on our journey with Him. 

Note on Psalm 119