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When prayer becomes a passion you pursue, and that passion is led by words of the heart, you are always altered by the action.

“Prayer is not so much to have our eyes shut as to have turned away… but instead open and directed to the right objects.”  – Charles Spurgeon

It is such an intimate act of faith that we sometimes take for granted, because we often utter faithless words out of habit rather than understanding.

Yet … still… we believe that there is power when people pray.

All over the world… people are revived, rescued, and restored as they seek God… believing that He hears, trusting that He is more than able to answer our pleas, longing to be changed or have our circumstances changed by Him.

The Psalmist took prayer to a level of deep intimate praise and petition in Psalm 119. Like a door  when opened causes us to draw near and make a choice to walk through or close, we find a peace that  consumes when obedience paves the way to blessing.

There is so much here to learn from in  these 24 verses of David’s prayer for understanding of God’s Word. Psalm 119:25-48 remind us of the necessity of His guidance and leading through every part of our journey, and the peace that is guaranteed as we purpose to follow His way.

Rest allows us to Understand His Promises.

God’s Word is the seed, fully active,  which produces new life in us, in our circumstances, and in our brokenness.

“When we are low, we must seek the ‘root of rest’ in order to be revived to live fully.” Charles Spurgeon.

Resting in His promises is a vital component to the revival of our hearts.  We take that step of seeking God through His Word, finding truth and knowledge by the very searching of His promises  in order to gain insight and wisdom into His ways.   The word,’ way’,  in the psalm  is tied to the Law of the Lord, the perfect law, that always leads to liberty. Liberty cannot be found in bondage, but instead it is seen in the tendrils of freedom’s cause.

Freedom comes when we confess and submit to His grace and let Him lead us… let Him love us beyond ourselves… reviving us so that we can be rescued from a life apart from God.

 

psalm 119 40

Wisdom rescues us from the destruction we chose for ourselves.

Our brains are wired to receive the process of learning and living that Proverbs 24:3-4 reveals.

By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious and pleasant riches.

Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom, (The Trivium), are the three roads that lead to liberty.

  • Knowledge is derived from the filling up on facts, truths, information that is beautiful, virtuous, and good. ( Phil 4:6-7)
  • Understanding dawns in our hearts as we connect the pieces and we search, we meditate, we sort out,  and we dig for more. We ask for more because we finally have a perception that there is more to require.(Matt. 7:7)
  • Yet, wisdom… the final stage in this learning pyramid, is the truly poetic phase because we are now branching into our own form of praise-filled awe of what we have purposed to make a priority.

Our prayers are now the contemplative pastime of our heart’s continual habitation in the Presence of the Father, the nearness of the Son, and the leading of the Spirit. (Psalm 19:14)

We need knowledge and understanding to keep searching, to keep meditating and letting the word dwell in us richly. We need His Wisdom for the full cohesion of Truth to connect with our soul; until then we can’t fully run in His Ways. But We CAN walk in them, we can learn and lean upon God so that we can be rescued and led to liberty.

“Men do not drop into the right way by chance, they must chose it or they will wander from it.”- Charles Spurgeon.

Psalm 119 29

Restoration is the act of peace quickened in our souls.

Understanding is sometimes the one area that we get stuck in when it comes to prayer. We often mitigate our requests from a place of perceptive blindness.  We ask, we counsel, and we plead for the LORD to meet our needs in our time and our space and our preference. But our arrogance shows vividly when we determine our path before we seek to know His.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements-surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, while the morning starts sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 38:4-6

These verses in Job 38 always stop me when I am reading them. I am alerted to my ignorance as I pray. Who am I to tell  God what is best? Yet, as God teaches us His statutes we learn to look into His promises for direct application of them. We need both wisdom and knowledge to grasp and understand fully. One without the other two does not work. We have to be careful we don’t love the world in place of loving God. We must choose Him first. We must choose His Word and His Way as our answer and our petition when we pray.

“Understanding operates on affectation; it convinces the heart of the beauty of the law so that the soul loves it with all its powers; and then it reveals the majesty of the law giver, and the whole nature bows before his supreme will.” Charles Spurgeon.

When we are quickened and established in Christ, we live on redemption’s time instead of our own because God’s Word is the everlasting preservative.  The more we take it in, study, meditate and pray about it, the more we are filled by His Spirit… the more we are built up in Him.  Only a God-changed heart can pray for a submitted and restored life full of wisdom that comes as a direct result of understanding and knowledge.

“The end of our keeping the law will come only when we cease to breath;”  -Charles Spurgeon.

Choose His Way as Your Own.

This Psalm enhances the many reasons that studying His Word predicates in our every day existence.  Study, Meditation, Prayer, corporately and individually, are a prescription for health and wholeness that revive, rescue and restore our broken places.

  • Be taught to be teachable. ( Psalm 119: 26,33)
  • Be willing to move towards God. (Psalm 119:32,35)
  • Be quickened and established to stand firm. (Psalm 119: 37,38,40)
  • Be a seeker as you look to the Word for understanding.(Psalm 119:27,34,36)
  • Be a glorifier of grace as you speak truth to the world. (Psalm 119:27,42,43)

Delighting in God’s Word is a life choice. A literal choosing to invest in LIFE.  It is an investment in grace in which we will reap exponential peace. Freedom and liberty are a result of a life lived in obedience to God.   Christ represents man fully broken and fully redeemed, the vehicle by which our peace was ransomed and purchased at a price none can afford to pay.

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There is always room at the Table of Grace for you. Consider this an invitation to join the journey as we travel through the 119th Psalm together. Each week we dig into 3 stanzas in this Psalm and share what we are learning together.

Would you like to Discover God’s Promises through His Word? As a thank you, each of my email subscribers receive a free study guide for this Psalm that follows the Psalm 119 Bible Study being shared over at the Table of Grace Community during the week.   All you have to do is subscribe and click on the link that is provided when you confirm your email subscription.

Previous posts in this study can be read here: Week 1 and Week 2


Linking up with friends for the journey:

#Ra#RaLink Up,  Unite,  #TellHisStory, Coffee For Your Heart, Three Word Wednesday, 3dlessons4life, #OneWordCoffee, Grace and Truth Link Up, Faith n Friends Blog Hop, Missional Women, Let’s Us Grow,Dance with Jesus, Give Me Grace,