How God Expresses His Love for UsSample

God’s Written Heart

God’s Story

The author of Psalm 119 loves God’s Word. Following a creative acrostic of the Hebrew alphabet, he praises God for giving it to his people.

“Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees,” the psalmist prays, “that I may follow it to the end. Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law and obey it with all my heart.” God’s law is more valuable to the psalmist than mounds of silver and gold. It lights every step of the path of his life, allowing him to walk about joyfully and in freedom. And he can’t contain his praise.

“The wicked have set a snare for me, but I have not strayed from your precepts. Your statutes are my heritage forever; they are the joy of my heart. My heart is set on keeping your decrees to the very end.”

The psalmist acknowledges that he hasn’t always followed God’s commands well — he has “strayed like a lost sheep.” But he begs God to be faithful to him because of the great promises God has made.

The King’s Heart

The revelation of God’s commands are such a precious gift — just as the psalmist says.

“Here is what is good and here is what is evil,” God tells us in Scripture. And we need a goodness compass. Because when the human race fell, we gained an entirely new set of experiences; evil and pain became a part of the landscape of our lives. But God wants us to know, to have a solid, unquestionable definition of what is good and what is evil. He wants us to have a guide to goodness — to know what decisions and actions would lead to joy so that, within the brokenness, we could experience as much goodness as possible.

But God’s commands aren’t just broken-world survival tips — they’re reflections of his heart. He is good. He is trustworthy and dependable and beautiful and righteous and true and holy. His commands show how he lives, what motivates his decisions and who he is.

And since God is the King of heaven, not only are his commands the way he operates, they are the way his kingdom operates. As we get used to living by them, we get acquainted with the rhythms of heaven.

“As my children who will live with me forever, this is your guide to home,” God says about his commands.

Insight

Psalm 119 is one of the only psalms that seems to have been written to be read rather than sung. The 22 stanzas form an acrostic of the Hebrew alphabet, and every verse within each stanza begins with that same successive letter.