Good morning.
Let’s start with a word of prayer.
Lord, we just thank You for bringing us together today to worship You and, as a corporate body, Lord, focus on You. We pray, Lord, that You would allow us to continue focusing on what You have done and what You have provided.
Lord, I pray that my presentation will not hinder Your message, but that Your Word would go out and touch the hearts of all those who hear it. I pray this in Your name.
Good morning. I want to start out this morning with a little side story that I heard this summer that really impressed me. It made me praise the Lord in a very odd place.
This summer, I had the privilege—or the responsibility—of taking a bunch of teenagers down to the Kennedy Space Center. We got a special tour of the Space Center, and as part of that tour, we got a presentation by one of the engineers who takes care of the tiles on the space shuttle.
At the end of his presentation, he told this story. Back in the mid-nineties, the Hubble Space Telescope underwent a repair. After that repair was done, the director of the telescope had two weeks to take pictures of anything he wanted to take pictures of.
What he decided to do was take a picture of nothing. There are spots in our sky where, from our earth-based telescopes, we have not seen anything. It is just a black spot in the sky.
The place the director chose was a tiny little place in the sky. If you can imagine looking at a tennis ball from a hundred yards away, that is how big this spot in the sky was. He decided he was going to take a picture of that spot, and nobody was going to stop him.
His colleagues scoffed at the idea of taking a picture of nothing. But he went ahead and said, “It’s my device, and I’m going to take this picture.” So he used the telescope for several days and took the picture.
What came back was this: there were four thousand galaxies. In a space the size of a tennis ball from a hundred yards away, there were hidden four thousand galaxies.
Of course, his colleagues were somewhat put to shame by the fact that there was so much there that we had never seen before. About ten years later, there was another service on the Hubble, and they did the same thing again. They took a picture of nothingness, a spot somewhere within that picture where there was really no object seen.
They took another picture, and it came back with this: there were another four thousand galaxies buried in another tiny little spot within that first picture.
What really impressed me when I saw this was a couple of things. One is just how big God is. I mean, He has made and created more than we can ever imagine. We think we know so much, that we know it all, but we look at a little spot in the sky and there are four thousand galaxies. We dig deeper and keep looking deeper and deeper, and the deeper we look, the more there is.
But it also spoke to me as we are coming into a time in our lives where things seem dark—things seem like, you know, God is not here. Well, He has been there. He knows what you are going through, and He has created a way through that. He has already been there.
Just like He has created these galaxies that we had no idea of, He has creation and things for us in these dark times that will amaze us.
Okay, enough of that story. We’ll move on to the message here. What I want to talk about today is the steps of a pursuer. If you could turn to Psalm 119:57–64.
I was encouraged a couple of weeks ago when Lance shared that, when he started ministering as a young man, he would write out his messages and then read them. That is what I do, and I have always felt guilty, or bad, because I would write these things out and get up here and pretty much read them. But knowing that Lance did that has encouraged me.
Psalm 119:57–64:
The Lord is my portion:
I have promised to keep Thy words.
I have sought Thy favor with my whole heart:
Be gracious unto me according to Thy word.
I thought on my ways,
And turned my feet unto Thy testimonies.
I made haste, and delayed not,
To observe Thy commandments.
The cords of the wicked have wrapped me round;
But I have not forgotten Thy law.
At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto Thee
Because of Thy righteous ordinances.
I am a companion of all them that fear Thee,
And of them that observe Thy precepts.
The earth, O Lord, is full of Thy lovingkindness:
Teach me Thy statutes.
A real quick introduction to Psalm 119: Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. There are 176 verses, and thankfully, we are not going to talk about them all today.
Nobody knows for sure who wrote this psalm. Some commentators believe that Ezra the priest wrote this psalm. The chapter has 176 verses, broken out into twenty-two stanzas, and each stanza is eight verses long. Each stanza is marked with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. We are going to be talking about the eighth stanza of Psalm 119.
This psalm was written during a time when books were incredibly expensive, because every book was handwritten. Only the very wealthy had books. So, to keep the Word of God close to their hearts and in their minds, the Hebrew people would memorize psalms and passages from the Word of God.
This psalm in particular is structured in such a way as to make it easy to memorize. Because it is broken down into those little eight-verse sections, it makes it more digestible. Because there is a common theme and a common cadence through the psalm, it makes it easier to memorize.
Almost every verse in this psalm references the law, the Word, or the commandment of the Lord. His law, His words, and His commandments are the things by which we know the Lord. He did not leave us without any clues to who He is and what He is like.
He left His Word, both written in this Book and written on our hearts. He has left those things to describe Himself. So, as we read about His law, His commandments, and His Word, we are reading about the character of God.
Now, we take words really lightly in our culture. Words mean so little to us because the people who speak the words have so little authority and so little integrity. But God’s words are different.
God has authority. By His Word, He created the universe—all that we know, and more than I just showed you. He has the integrity to back up His words. He is never double-minded or deceitful in His words. He never changes His mind, and He never changes His words.
As we get into the study of His Word, I want to walk through this stanza one verse at a time and examine what each verse is telling us. To me, this stanza is a clear roadmap and outline for someone who wants to pursue the Lord: steps to pursuing Him.
Verse 57:
The Lord is my portion:
I have promised to keep Thy words.
I want to break this verse down into two sections, because it really sets the tone and launches us into the whole stanza. The exact phrasing of this verse is very important: “The Lord is my portion.”
There are two ways that we could hear this verse in our heads. We could hear, “The Lord is a portion.” When we hear that, we think about all the good things we have in our life and say, “Well, the Lord is a good chunk of it.” But we also have the country we live in, work, ourselves, our family, and all these other things.
Or we could hear it as, “The Lord is my portion.” In that, the Lord is everything. All those other things are not important as compared to the Lord. Notice there is one little word difference between “a portion” and “my portion.”
What is the difference between a portion and my portion? Imagine for a minute that you have a bunch of food. I know it is not hard to imagine that you have a bunch of food, because we all have a bunch of food. If I give you a piece of pie, that piece of pie is just a portion of the food you have. It is no big deal. It is just another piece of food.
But imagine, for a minute, that you have nothing. You have no food, and I give you a piece of pie. That piece of pie is your portion. It is all that you have. You have nothing else.
So when the writer says that the Lord is my portion, he is acknowledging his destitution without the Lord. All that he has has come from the Lord, and he is acknowledging that. There is nothing else. All of it comes from the Lord.
The Lord is not a portion; He is our portion. He is all that we have. We have nothing else. All these other signs, or steps, of a pursuer are in reaction to recognizing that we are destitute without the Lord and that the Lord is our portion.
These steps do not make the Lord our portion. The Lord is already our portion. The steps I am going to talk about are a natural reaction to seeing Him as all that we have.
The first step in pursuing the Lord is to recognize that the Lord is all that we have and that we are destitute without Him.
What is the second part of this verse telling us? What is the next step? It gives us a clue: “I have promised to keep Thy words.”
I think the clue here is: do something rash. Promise to keep His words.
When I first read that phrase, it really took me back. Such a bold promise to make—a promise to keep Your words. What kind of fool would promise to keep all of God’s words? You know he is going to fail.
But sometimes we are so restrained, so reserved, and so careful with our approach to the Lord that we end up not doing what the Lord wants. He wants us to throw ourselves at Him in exuberant love. He wants us to be fools for Christ.
Instead of throwing ourselves at the Lord and being fools for Him, we become all prim and proper. We become very reserved. We become realists. We know how difficult—and really how impossible—it is to keep all of His commands. So, as realists, we do not want to promise anything that we cannot do. We do not want to disappoint the Lord by failing Him.
But I think we need to get really real about this: we will disappoint the Lord. Whether we promise to do anything or not, we are going to disappoint Him. So, knowing that we are going to disappoint Him, why do we start the relationship with such disappointing reserve?
If we do not step out, He is not going to step in. In John 12, when Mary broke the vial of perfume on Christ’s feet, she was spending her life on Him. That was all that she had. She had saved that as her dowry, and she spent it all on Christ.
Her brash action, her rashness, is fondly remembered. It was valued by Christ. Other people who were following Christ at the time did not value it; they scoffed at it. But Christ valued it, and her action is fondly remembered today.
I think this rashness that the psalmist is displaying is a childlike rashness that the Lord really cherishes and that He will honor.
Let me try to explain this brashness with a more modern story that a lot of us can relate to. When Brenda and I got married twenty-two years ago—and yes, in Ohio they let children get married—I promised to always love her and cherish her until death parts us.
Now, I am going to be honest here, and I am going to be realistic. I have not always loved and cherished my wife for the past twenty-two years, and I am sorry for that. There were times when I mistreated her, was angry at her, and treated her in an unloving manner.
I made that promise. I promised to cherish her, and I did not always follow through on it. Does that mean I should not have promised to begin with? Nope.
Could you imagine her disappointment on our wedding day if I had been as realistic as we are with Christ? If I had come to the altar and said, “Hey, babe, you’re beautiful. Yeah, I like you. I like hanging out with you, but I’m not going to promise anything, because I know that I’m going to fail you. I’m just going to be realistic about this. I’m going to fail you, and I don’t want you to be disappointed when I do.”
Do you think she would have been happy? Do you think she would have been smiling like she is up there now? I do not think so. But I think that is how we approach the Lord. We do not want to promise more than we can do.
But that is not what He wants us to do. He wants us to promise more than we can do and intend to do more than we can do, because then we have to step out in His life. We have to live in His life to do that.
The apostle Peter was always promising things that he had no capability of doing. But the Lord worked through his brashness to teach him. I do not recall any of the other disciples getting the depth of lesson that Peter got through his brash actions and statements that he had no way of following through on.
The Lord is our portion. He is all that we have. Why do we approach Him with such reservation and such reserve? If you want to pursue the Lord, pursue Him with passion. Let Him pick up the pieces, and let Him provide the life to actually do it.
Verse 58:
I have sought Thy favor with my whole heart:
Be gracious unto me according to Thy word.
The psalmist is asking the Lord to be true to His Word. This may sound somewhat rhetorical, but I think this is the outcome of the brash promise to do His Word. We want to please Him, but we know that He will be gracious to us when we fall short.
Many Christians, in many parts of Christendom, only read half of this verse. They either read the first half or the second half.
Some work hard to achieve His favor, and they forget His graciousness. They become legalistic. They become imitations of what Christ wanted, because legalism is not what Christ wants. There is little reward, but lots of toil. There is little relationship, but lots and lots of blind striving.
Others do not read the first half, but they read the second half and focus on the graciousness of God. They forget that God is a holy God, and they use His graciousness as a cover for worldliness.
I think that a balanced approach to this verse is a secret to a vibrant Christian walk for someone who is pursuing the Lord. If we seriously see ourselves as destitute, and He is our portion, then we will want to follow Him because He is all that we have. Our responsibility will be one of wanting to please Him and to seek His favor.
But as we seek His favor, it is going to quickly become obvious that we need His graciousness. We will fail, and we will need His graciousness. In fact, His graciousness is an essential part of the portion that He has given us.
As we fail in our efforts to find favor with Him, His graciousness in bringing us back will be all the more valuable to us. Then, as we experience His graciousness, it will make us want to seek His favor all the more.
How could we turn our backs on such wondrous graciousness and not want to seek Him more after He forgives us and welcomes us back?
The key to seeking His favor and enjoying His graciousness is to recognize where His favor and graciousness are found. They are found in His Son, Jesus Christ. As we abide in the life of Christ, we are abiding in His favor and living in His graciousness.
When we stray from His life, we stray from His favor. But He is gracious, and He will open His arms at our return.
Verse 59:
I thought on my ways,
And turned my feet unto Thy testimonies.
This next verse was the verse that originally caught my eye and caused me to dive deeper into this stanza of eight verses. The picture of turning your feet toward His testimonies was something tangible that I could quickly relate to, and it drew me into the rest of the stanza.
The direction that your feet are pointing is the direction that you will most likely travel in next. I do not know if you have ever tried to walk with your feet pointing in the wrong direction. It is really hard to do, and it is really inefficient.
As we pursue the Lord, we need to have our feet pointed toward Him—our direction pointed toward Him. If our feet are just meandering around, going in whatever direction, we are going to be stumbling, walking around in circles, and not progressing toward the Lord.
This verse is spoken in the past tense from somebody who has followed the Lord. It encourages us to consider our ways and turn our direction to the testimonies of the Lord, or to the words of the Lord.
What does it mean to consider your ways? It means to think about what you are doing, think about what will happen next, and consider all the ramifications, temptations, sins, goals, purposes, and risks involved in what you are doing.
To put this in practical terms, let’s talk about bad drivers. There are several brothers here who have been to bad driving school recently. But let’s talk about bad drivers.
There is one class of bad drivers: the overconfident, aggressive drivers. I am guessing Samuel is one of those. Anyway, I am one of those overconfident, aggressive drivers, but we are not going to talk about them today.
We are going to talk about another type of bad driver: the unconfident, timid driver. These are the drivers who are just looking at the road right in front of the hood of their car.
They are so afraid of hitting anything, or so unconfident, that they look right at the front of their car. They weave all over the place. They do not really know where their car is going because they are not looking ahead.
If they would pick up their head, look down the road, look down the hood of their car, and see what they are headed for, they would be much more stable drivers and would not run into as many things.
The unconfident driver is just as scared of running into stuff as anybody else is. But because they are looking at the end of their hood and not looking ahead, they are going to run into more things. If they would look up, they would have time to see the trouble coming and get out of its way.
It is the same way with pointing our feet at the Lord. If you are not considering where your feet are pointed, you are going to run into trouble. No matter how badly you do not want to run into trouble, you are going to run into it because you are not looking where you are going.
If you are pursuing the Lord and really want to keep His Word and abide in His life, you need to be looking ahead—not just the next step, but five, ten, twenty steps out in front of you. You need to see what is coming, really consider where your steps are taking you, and think about what could happen next.
Let’s say you are having a conversation with somebody and enjoying nice fellowship. Something comes to mind that you want to share about a third person who is not in that conversation. To consider your ways, you would think, “If I share this, is it going to lead to more questions about that third person? Is it going to lead to gossip? Is it going to encourage the person I am sharing with, or is it just going to make me look better?”
Another example: let’s say you are at home alone, surfing the internet, and you decide to check out some sports scores on a sports website. That sounds innocent enough.
But what if that website just had its annual swimsuit issue? You go there, and the temptation of seeing those models becomes too much and leads you into harder pornography. You need to think about where this first innocent step could take you down the road.
If you consider your ways, you will foresee the trouble coming and be able to avoid it. Maybe do not go to that website, or do not surf alone, if you are considering your ways—especially on the internet.
Taking this verse into the larger context of the stanza, there is something interesting to note: the progression of instruction in this whole stanza starts with the heart, recognizing that the Lord is our portion.
When the heart is turned to the Lord and recognizes that He is our portion, the feet can follow. The wise consideration of where your feet are turned can follow.
If you start with your feet and try to follow with your feet without your heart being there—without really knowing why you are following, without a desire or passion to follow—you are going to end up in a death march, with blind walking and dead movement without any desire. There is no joy and no passion if we do not recognize that the Lord is our portion.
I remember when I was a teenager, I actually dreaded heaven. I thought, “I am going to be really, really bored there. There is nothing to do. There are no cars. What am I going to do?”
But it was because I was just walking without any purpose and without any desire for the One I was following. When you recognize that the Lord is your portion—when the Lord is all that you have—then there comes that desire to follow Him and turn your feet toward Him.
As we see Him as all that we have, want to obey Him in His Word, and seek His favor, we need to wisely consider our ways and soberly consider whether our current path is taking us toward Him.
Sometimes we feel like the Lord is a moving target. We point our feet toward Him, and suddenly He is somewhere else. But the Lord does not play Marco Polo with us. He does not change. He does not move around. He does not make us grope for Him in the dark.
He is a constant beacon that does not change or waver. But we are the ones who change, waver, and wander. We may be doing that because we are not considering our ways.
Verse 60:
I made haste, and delayed not,
To observe Thy commandments.
Now that your feet are pointed in the right direction, the psalmist encourages the pursuer to hurry up and do what is right. Sometimes I think we are guilty of the syndrome of “ready, aim, aim, aim, aim.” We never get to the point of firing.
We are so afraid that we are going to disappoint the Lord by doing something wrong that we do nothing at all. It is like we think we will surprise the Lord or shock Him if we do something wrong. I do not think He is going to be shocked.
Even after considering our ways, we may take a wrong step. We may wander off the path. But the Lord is gracious. He will bring us back, and He will welcome us back. Just refer back to verse 58.
We should not hesitate to follow the intuition the Lord has given us. If you have considered your ways and the way is toward the Lord, then go that way. Do not hesitate. Do not delay.
If we see that the Lord is all that we have—if we do not have anything else but Him—why do we delay in pursuing Him? Are we going to wait until our favorite show comes on? Why are we delaying?
One profile that I read of Ezra, who may have written this psalm, listed one of the key principles gleaned from Ezra’s life: “The starting place for serving God is a personal commitment to serve Him today, even before knowing what that service will be.”
This verse exemplifies that principle. We need to be ready to obey quickly, even before we know what God has called us to. We do not get to choose our task before we decide whether we are going to obey or not.
Sometimes we want to feel ready and able to obey before we step out to obey. But when we want to feel ready and able, what we are really doing is waiting until we feel like we can do it in ourselves. We are stepping out in our own life rather than stepping out in the Lord’s life.
He will not ask us to do what He will not carry us through. If He asks us to do something, He is going to provide the life to get us through that. So, we need to be ready to obey quickly. After all, He is all that we have.
Verse 61:
The cords of the wicked have wrapped me round;
But I have not forgotten Thy law.
Even after throwing yourself on the Lord, considering your ways, and hastening to follow Him, there is still an enemy that wants to destroy us. No matter how faithfully we pursue—or maybe because we faithfully pursue—troubles will come.
The enemy and trials convince us that we are going to lose what we have, but we cannot lose our portion. The Lord is our portion. Do not forget that. He is all that we have.
Actually, the Lord has us, and nothing can take us away from Him. We come under this delusion that we have all these other things in addition to Christ. We start to hold onto those things with the same fervor, or even more fervor, than we hold onto Christ.
We mix these things together so that we cannot really tell where Christ ends and something else begins. We get all confused and muddied about that.
The enemy uses these things to shake our confidence in Christ and shake our hope in Christ. The Lord can use these things to shake them out of our hands and relieve us of the things we are depending on. Either way, we get shaken.
In recent years, it seems like there are troubles encircling us. If you follow what is going on in the news, you know that Islam is on the rise. It seems like the day will come when we cannot worship Jesus without fearing for our lives.
On the other hand, there is humanism on the rise, and it leads to the same result: that we will not be able to worship Jesus without fearing for our lives. Then we have our economy. It is rapidly approaching a banana republic. We have a government doing things that just do not seem rational; they defy belief. All these things are encircling us.
It seems like we have come under the belief that it requires freedom from tyranny to worship God. But I think the heroes of our faith would disagree with the statement that worship requires freedom. The Lord can be followed and worshiped regardless of what form of government we are under.
We can even worship the Lord when inflation is running rampant. The Scriptures tell us that He can be followed regardless of any circumstance, because He is above and apart from all of the mess that we find ourselves in.
We can take encouragement from that rash apostle Peter, who wrote in 1 Peter 4:12–14:
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you:
But insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of His glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy.
If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you.
These saints that Peter was writing to were undergoing extreme persecution, but Peter encouraged them to keep on rejoicing. If we are reviled for the name of Christ, we are blessed.
I do not think these troubles that we see coming, and the troubles that are happening, are the real labor pains. I think they are kind of Braxton Hicks contractions, getting us ready for the real labor pains to begin.
But if we know that the Lord is all that we have—if He is our portion, if we are destitute without Him—then we can remain focused on Him and on His ways, even when other troubles encircle us. No matter what comes, He cannot be taken away from us.
Verse 62:
At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto Thee
Because of Thy righteous ordinances.
There are a couple of points we can bring out in this verse. First, the psalmist is encouraging us in the same way Paul encouraged us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18:
Rejoice always;
Pray without ceasing;
In everything give thanks:
For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward.
Here and in many other places, we are instructed to always give thanks. If the Lord is our provision, if He is all that we have, and if He is all that matters, then we can be above all the catastrophes going on around us, and we can give thanks.
Notice that this verse about giving thanks comes immediately after the verse about being encircled by the wicked and those who would destroy us. Even when we are surrounded by those who would harm us, we can be giving thanks, and we should be giving thanks.
For me, this is a very, very hard thing to do. There are so many things that occupy my mind and occupy my time. To be honest, I do not really see myself as destitute.
I tend to compare the Lord with things that I have which really are not worth anything. But there are things that I have that are not worth anything, and they are really shiny and really attractive. I am kind of like a crow, attracted by something shiny on the ground rather than what is of real value.
I look at these shiny things and get distracted from the real value of the Lord and what the Lord has provided, which is Himself. Again, recognizing that the Lord is our portion is key to being thankful in all situations.
Another point from this verse is that the psalmist arose at midnight to give thanks. He was not just giving thanks when it was convenient. He was going out of his way to give thanks.
Maybe, as a leader of the people, Ezra did not have time during the day. Maybe there were too many people bugging him. Maybe he had to get up at midnight to give thanks. But, like Stephen talked about a couple of weeks ago, we need to make time to commune with the Lord.
If that means getting up at midnight when no one else is up to do it, then that is what needs to be done. If He is our everything, then giving thanks in everything will not seem out of place.
Verse 63:
I am a companion of all them that fear Thee,
And of them that observe Thy precepts.
There are a number of things to notice from this verse that encourage us and help us in pursuing Christ. The first is the most obvious exhortation: a pursuer of Christ does not pursue alone.
If you pursue alone, you are going to get discouraged, you are going to get lonely, and you will probably eventually stop pursuing. God did not make us to be alone. He made us to have companionship.
I know you all probably cannot tell this, but I go to the gym. I go to the gym three or four times a week, and it is completely fruitless, I know.
On some of those visits, I run on a treadmill. I can usually go about a quarter of a mile before I am totally bored. Running along, there is nothing to do and nothing to look at. Even with a television screen in front of me, it is just boring.
I have tried the same thing on a track at the gym. I can get about a lap done, and then my mind is like, “I have got to do something else. I am bored out of my mind.” My mind wants to crawl out of my head and do something else.
After a while of being bored, I start thinking, “This breathing-hard business and this sweating business, this is not any fun at all. Why are we doing this? This is just painful.”
I can usually go about fifteen minutes before all I can think about is the pain and, “Why is this happening to me?” So I stop. That is it. I have wanted to do two miles, but my mind will not let me do two miles because I get bored out of my mind and stop.
On other days, I go to the gym and play racquetball with Rachel. Because I am playing a sport with somebody else, interacting with somebody else, and communicating with somebody else, I do not think about the pain. I do not think about how hard I am breathing or how much I am sweating.
I can go forty-five minutes to an hour before I realize, “I am a little tired, and yeah, I am sweaty and stinky. But you know what? I am having fun, and I am smiling.”
All that said, the point is that we are not made to pursue alone. We are not made to run this race alone.
Another thing to remember from this verse is that companionship is not just receiving encouragement from others; it is also giving encouragement. It is not just having one’s needs met; it is meeting the needs of others. Being a companion is a two-way street.
Being a companion to those who fear God means not just being helped by others, but helping others.
There is also a little word in this verse that is important: all. The psalmist tells us to be a companion of all those who fear You.
It is very easy to miss that little word, but it is important. As we are pursuing, if we limit our companionship to only those who agree completely with us, or only those we like or can relate to, the next thing we know, we will be alone again.
Not everybody is going to agree with us all the time, and we are going to find things to dislike in each other. So, if someone fears the Lord and wants to pursue the Lord, be a companion to them. Encourage them, help them, and be helped by them. Just do not pursue alone.
There is also an important concept in this verse when it is taken in the full context of the stanza. Remember that the Lord is our portion. We have nothing else but Him, and we are destitute without Him.
As we are companions with others who fear the Lord and pursue the Lord, remember that all you have is Christ, and all they have is Christ. They too are destitute without the Lord.
Paul reminds us of this in 1 Corinthians 2:2:
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
Paul is encouraging us in our companionship and fellowship with others to know Christ alone, and Christ crucified, in each other. That other person has nothing else but Christ, just like us. They are destitute without Christ.
So, in our companionship, we need to have companionship about Christ. If we are having companionship and fellowship around those other things, then we are having fellowship around things that are temporary and fleeting.
Worse than that, we are having fellowship about things that tend to distract us and draw us off course. Remember to seek companionship with those who fear God and have Him as their portion.
The next and final verse is verse 64:
The earth, O Lord, is full of Thy lovingkindness:
Teach me Thy statutes.
When we recognize that all that the Lord does is full of lovingkindness, it will draw us to want more of Him. He loves us and has done more for us than we can ever imagine.
Even when we think we know all that the Lord has done for us, one day we will wake up and there will be another four thousand galaxies there, showing us what He has done for us.
We should continually ask Him to reveal Himself to us—to continue to reveal Himself to us. Sometimes it seems like we have become jaded. We see something of the Lord, are satisfied with it, and walk away without it really changing us, without really desiring any more of Him.
We get so distracted by the shiny things of this world that we miss the real value of the Lord.
When we cut out all the crud and the craft, all the noise and distraction from our lives, and see Him for who He truly is—when we see Him as all that we have—then our response will be like the psalmist’s.
I will just kind of paraphrase what the psalmist said in this stanza: “Lord, You are good. Lord, You are all that we have. Lord, You are our provision. Lord, we want more of You.”
Let’s pray.
Lord, You really are all that we have.
Lord, help us to see the futility and the uselessness of all these other things that we gather around us and all these other things that we cling to. Lord, help us to cling to You and You alone, and to pursue You and You alone.
I pray this in Your name. Amen.