by Robert Fudge

Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes.
I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.
I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey=2 0your word.
I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me.
How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.

Have you ever read or heard some part of the Bible and thought that you did not like that? Are there things that God has told us to do or be that you just do not like or see the need to do them? If so, then you are probably normal. That is, normal as far as this world is concerned. We are not to be normal but we are to be a special people, separated by the way we think, the way we act and the way we live. (I Peter 2:7-8) How could David express the thought and feeling that God’s word is “sweeter than honey to my mouth?”

The answer to this is that he was “a man after God’s own heart” or as it is put in other places, his heart was “wholly set on the LORD.” When we set our heart on serving God above all else, it then becomes a joy and not a burden. David recognized the wisdom that he could gain from God. He recognized the blessing that God bestowed on him every day. He recognized the protection that God provided for him from all harm. He recognized that the more he knew God, the easier and more fulfilling it was to serve Him.

Too often today our problem is that we want to be a part of the world around us. We want to allow “things” to control us. We want to fill our lives with “events” to satisfy us. We want to have relationships to support us. These are not wrong in themselves. They are a part of each of us. The fact is we must have things, events and relationships. However, we must not allow them to control us or put our trust in them to provide us happiness and fulfillment. As Paul said on one occasion, we are in the world but we must not become part of the world.

To find the joy that is described in the Psalm above, we must have our heart set on God, on His word, on His way and His will for our lives. We then must be determined to allow Him and His way to become our way as is said concerning Jesus; “I have come to do Thy will, O God”. When we fail to realize the joy and satisfaction in serving God and being with fellow Christians, it just may be that the problem is in our heart. Jesus said that the greatest command ever given was to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul and mind. Then He added that the second greatest was similar in that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. It seems that somehow we always end up coming back to loving God and each other. Maybe that is because God is love and we want to be like Him.

I pray that each of you will have a wonderful day as you serve Him as LORD of your life.