Psalm 119:56
This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts. Psalm 119:56
Man, what a week… We were in three cities in 8 days and now back home. We met the best people. The first of the week was all new friends, church planters, Godly men and women. The end of the week was like a homecoming for us with folks from all over the US and Canada learning and sharing about biblical counseling. It was an amazing blessing for us. We distributed approximately 1,000 Psalm 119 journals in the process.
“This blessing…” The Psalmist declares a blessing in his life. Think about the confidence it takes to make a statement like this. My entitled, western mind rarely stops to recognize a blessing from God. Rather, I curse the traffic instead.
“…has fallen to me,” This Psalmist declares this blessing to be completely outside of himself. He does not say he achieved it. He says instead that he received the blessing. He did not manufacture it from inside himself but found himself the recipient of the blessing falling on him.
“…that I have kept your precepts.” What is this blessing? His answer alludes to two things. First, he says that the blessing is that he has kept God’s precepts. And secondly, he says that by pursuing God’s precepts, he has been blessed. Both have happened. He has been blessed to follow God’s precepts and God has blessed him in keeping His precepts.
This might be called “blessings upon blessings.”
When I accurately assess my wretched past of not following Jesus and then look at my life today, it is like The Tale of Two Cities opening line, “It was the best of times (my life following Jesus), it was the worst of times (my life prior to knowing Jesus).
I once heard a pastor say, “We are all born dead!” And he followed with, “And, we all need to be born-again!” That was my life. I was dead in my trespasses and sin and needed new life.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
— Ephesians 2:1-3 ESV
But God is faithful… That is my testimony.
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
— 1 Cornithians 1:9 ESV
God found me where I was, in my sin. I could not clean myself up. In my mind I had broken the big unforgivable sins. But God saves and is faithful to redeem me. I write things to myself each day but one thing I try to remember to write is a simple statement, “Repent and Believe.”
My prayer for you today is just that, “Repent and Believe.” God is faithful to restore you. Consider connecting with someone on the Burke Care team to talk through what it would look like to do that today.
Father, so often I complain about life, and I do not see the blessings you have faithfully provided me. I cuss and kick and scream like a spoiled child. You see all my immaturity and ignorance and selfish desires, yet you still love me and pursue me. You keep running after me. Help me to see all the “blessings upon blessings” you bestow on me every day. Make my heart rest in your abundant provision. Amen!
Application Questions:
Where do I start feeling entitled and begin demanding my agenda?
What do I continue to go back to from my prior live that leads to death?
Where is God asking me today to stop and simply “repent and believe?”
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