Psalm 119:73-80

Yodh.

Your hands made me and fashioned me; give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments. May those who fear You see me and be glad, because I wait for Your word. I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous, and that in faithfulness You have afflicted me. O may Your lovingkindness comfort me, according to Your word to Your servant. May Your compassion come to me that I may live, for Your law is my delight. May the arrogant be ashamed, for they subvert me with a lie; but I shall meditate on Your precepts. May those who fear You turn to me, even those who know Your testimonies. May my heart be blameless in Your statutes, so that I will not be ashamed.^[1]

John records Jesus as saying that the Spirit gives life, and it is true. But it is the Word of the Lord that gives us abundant life! Jeremiah writes, “‘Is not my Word like a fire,’ says the Lord, ‘and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” The Word of God gives us life because it purges us, breaks us and then forms us. People that have known us over time have limited knowledge of us. They know us from their experience with us, and that knowledge leads to the development of opinions that can be positive or negative. When after long absences from one another we encounter some of those that have known us there is often surprise because something about us has changed.

When we get into the Word of God that gives life we encounter great change. Sometimes the change is so dramatic that people will not recognize us. We seem the same to ourselves but those that know us perceive a change for the better. That change does not have to be evidenced in what we say, but is clearly evidenced in and by what we do. When people see the change there is the very real possibility that it will motivate and provoke a change in them as well. I thank God that I am being transformed daily and that because of it God uses me in ways I never imagined. May the same happen to you beginning today.

Gracious Lord, Your Word is so transforming. Help us to understand it better that we might walk in greater obedience to it and be continually formed by it. Thank You that our past is behind us and that as a result of Your Word the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus is yet before us. May those who have known us in our past now see us and be glad because of all that You have done and are yet doing in us. We ask it all in Jesus’ name. Amen

^[1] New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ps 119:73–80.