Samuel D. High
sdhigh@aristotle.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Apostle Tom <pressingon@hotmail.com>
Sent: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 19:22:39 -0500
To: <pressingon@hotmail.com>
Subject: Morning Manna (July 10); BP: Ps. 119:9-16; RBTTY: Acts 16:22-40;
July 10 “On Hearing and Heeding the Word”
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Your Word.”
Psalm 119:9
We need never wonder, “Oh me, oh my—what am I going to do?” when God’s Word already has the answers for us.
Picture, if you will, two persons madly in love with each other. They go everywhere together. They like the same foods and doing the same things. They are, if you will, like “two peas in a pod.”
But, there’s a problem.
One day one of them goes for a visit to the other’s house and happens to open a drawer in an end-table next to the sofa while the “love of her life” is fixing tea for her. To her shock and dismay, she discovers every love letter she’s ever sent him lying within, unopened. She lifts out a handful. . .recognizes every one. . .the postmark of the day she sent them. . .and remembers how lovingly she wrote those words and seals each envelope with a kiss.
But, there they are—unopened and unread.
Can you blame the poor, brokenhearted lass for bursting out the door in tears, never to return again? No, not at all—for it’s easy to profess one’s love for another, yet prove otherwise by our actions.
And, so it is with our love for the Lord Jesus Christ and His incomparable and inspired Word. In reality, all 66 books in the Bible are His “love letters” to us. Although some books, like Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the “begets” and genealogies may not be the easiest of readings, the fact remains they are still given to us for inspiration and instruction. And, to never pick up God’s Word or have little or no working knowledge of it is to wound our Lord’s heart like the uncaring lad in the above story.
Since we don’t know who penned Ps. 119, we can only speculate if the “young man” mentioned in today’s Manna is him or his aged instruction to those much younger than he. Regardless, the truth is still the same: Only by “taking heed (Heb. ‘shamar’—‘to hedge about as with thorns, guard, protect, attend to, preserve, have regard for, etc.’) to God’s Word can we cleanse (Heb. ‘zakah’—‘be innocent, make pure, be transparent, translucent, etc.’) our ways.”
Is that not why Jesus said of Nathanael when he came to Him, “Behold, an Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no guile (Grk. ‘dolos’—‘deceit, wile, trick, treachery, craftiness, etc.’)” –Jn. 1:47? Had He not seen him “sitting alone under a fig tree meditating upon God’s Word” (Jn. 1:48) while others whiled away their time?
Oh, dear Pilgrim, it’s only when we “seek the Lord with our whole heart” (Ps. 119:10a) that we’ll “not wander from His commandments” (v.10b). It’s only as we “hide His Word in our hearts that we’ll not sin against Him” (v.11). May His Spirit help us today to delight in Him by “delighting in and not forgetting His Word” (v.16).
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