Vs. 1  “The  Lord is  my light  and  my salvation; whom shall  I fear?”

My Light – Light  scares away “bad guys”. Light deters wrong doing and evil (on my part,too).  Light for my path (ps 119) gives me direction.

My Salvation  – for when I need a Savior. Thank  God  for my Salvation,  but  He’s  also my Savior – the Savior of my life ‘in the land of the living’.  When my “light” doesn’t scare away the bad guys, or wrong doing or evil get too close, He’s there to direct (or convict) me. Even when I bring it on myself, He’s  STILL there to save me.

If (since) God is for me, who shall be against me? (Rom. 8:31)

Whom shall I  fear?  – FEAR GOD

The Lord is the strength of my life…Because He Lives!

Pride is the Great Transgression

vs. 14  The revelation of Who God is and What He is Like brings the psalmist to seek a clean heart in vs. 11-13.  This God “real-ity” brings focus and “real-ity” on who we are and what we are like.

A right spirit of humility and repentance sets the foundation for renewed fellowship with God.  A daily, constant consideration of the Lord in word and thought and heart attitude (mind, body, spirit-“with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind” Matt. 22:26.)

This relationship assures the psalmist that God is keeping him safe, giving him strength for today, and giving him an eternal place with Him forever.  GREAT REWARD!

vs. 12-14  The glimpse of Himself that God reveals can only generate a humble, shameful view of ourselves, and (hopefully) an immediate desire to get our hearts and lives right to promote the fellowship granted us with our Awesome God.

vs. 12  We don’t view our own sin undistorted.  We deceive ourselves.  Also, we don’t have God’s perception for motives and His wisdom when we spend our minutes, where our thoughts go, or how we respond to or instigate situations.

Secret faults are issues that, like our sin, only God sees as they really are and understands.  Faults in our “personallity”, mental and emotional, that have been so engrained in us that we refuse to (deceiving ourselves) identify as sin -“just a querk of my personality.”

vs. 13  Presumptious sins are nothing but PRIDE.  It gets a whole catagory of its own.  Is our “devotion” to God (church attendance, proper dress, family) rooted in pride?  The sin of pride is alive and inscrutable , and out to trip us up.  Here, the psalmist requires God’s help to understand pride having “dominion” over him.  Pride wants to own and rule us; and it  will  if we don’t have God’s supernatural power.  One must denonstrate “anti-pride”–to submit and yield one’s self to the only pride antedote–the Holy Spirit!

Pride is the Great Transgression.

vs. 10  All that the Bible is-a supernatural book, makes it much more desirable than gold –

wealth ~cannot save your soul from hell

~cannot make you wise and help you through life’s woes

~cannot bring you joy, but riches often carry unhappiness

~cannot keep life in focus, but binds you in blindness and fosters greed

~cannot give you respect for GOD and other people, but breeds pride

~cannot give you a true and righteous life-one that is truly satisfying

Honey was the sweetest taste there was in the times these words were penned.  Realizing all the Bible does for its reader ought to cause us to desire to spend time in it.  Realizing the greatness of GOD’s love for us ought to make its words so sweet we seek it often.

vs. 11  These wonderful words are sent specifically to the individual.  It is a love letter written to me! Thy servant.  GOD wants to guard me against danger and keep me from making costly mistakes.  He also doesn’t want me to miss the oppportunity to enjoy some benefits and blessings.  When God says, “great reward“, He really means GREAT; He called all of Creation only “good”!

In this psalm, vs. 1-6 tells of God’s revelation of Himself to us through His amazing Creation – purposed to do just that; vs. 7-9 tells of God’s revelation of Himself to us through His amazing Book – purposed to do just that.

vs. 7-9           His Book

Law of the Lord is Perfect.  What God lays out for us as fact is indeed infalable.  There is NO ERROR. All His promises are sure – for good and bad.

When one sees the amazing perfection of all the the Bible teaches about life and it’s perfect “rightness” in factual knowledge, science, (yes , there’s much science ahead of human discovery) AND prophecy, it causes one to trust God for Salvation – converting the soul.  (God put this first on His list!)

Testimony of the Lord is Sure.  God is “the God Who keeps His promises” and He never changes.  Lining up one’s thinking with the instruction and guidelines given, and standing on biblical truth will make even a simple person wise, and God promises not to make that one ashamed.  On the contrary, He says one who trusts what He says will be respected by others!

Statutes of the Lord are right.  What God says is good and righteous.  Nothing evil, bad , or nasty comes out of God’s Word.  Good things bring Joy; bad = sad.

Commandment of the Lord is pure . God is “true blue”. His rules and commands to us are not so He can “control freak” us.  His motives are pure -pure love.  The more one follows God’s commands, the more he will see His love to us.

Fear of the Lord = respect and awe.  It will drive one to be clean, “be ye holy”.  Everything about God is clean.  Clean is always preferred!…and always will be – get used to it, it’s forever. Selah!

Judgements of the Lord are always right on, all of them, altogether.  From one end of the Book to the other. But, His love for us cannot look the other way on our sin. (That’s not a true and perfect love.)  His long-suffering (and amazing self-control) must never be mistaken as “getting away with” sin.  He is the perfect, loving Father, and His desire and purpose is for His children to get things right.

vs. 5-6 Tell us about Jesus.

vs. 5  Describes Jesus as our Bridegroom.  He loves us and wants to make us His.  He even rejoices in the “race” set before Him that He is to fulfill in order to accomplish our “wedding”.

vs. 6  Jesus was from the beginning and before the beginning;  He is all encompassing-GOD-“nothing hid from“-no one escapes their need of the Saviour–>no other way.  No one is in such a position , so great, mighty or in a state that is too hard or too terrible for Jesus’s “heat” to reach.  He also knows and sees all – nothing hid.

vs. 2  All of Creation is God’s contact with us;  He has gone to great lengths to give us undeniable evidence that He is here and that He is GOD!  “day & night” – 24/7 – without end God is calling to us.

vs. 3-4  This revelation is to all-“All of Creation is groaning”(Rom.8:22) awaiting God’s return.  The “lower life forms” know God, and are grateful to Him for His provision.
The lions know they are fed by Him, the ants know they are led by Him, even the flowers know they are dressed by Him.  Only humans are creatures so “intelligent” that they have become ignorant of Him.  But God’s declaration of Himself to us by His ‘handiwork’ leaves us without excuse-Romans 10:18&1:20)

God also gives us a wonderful picture of His Son in this Creation revelation.  To earth, the sun is at the apex of the handiwork of the firmament.  More on this in my next post.

vs. 1 still cont’d.  We must consider what God has given us to declare Who He is and the great lengths He has gone to show us what He is like.

-Space demonstrates Who God is-

Vastly Bigger and more powerful and terrible than we can comprehend.

-The Firmament, that which lies beneath what we call  “Space” demonstrates what God is like.

His handiwork-Selah-His lovely and perfect Creation made lovingly for us.  God focused on us!

He is Wisdom perfectly executed

He is all senses graciously satisfied.

He is all encompassing- The Great I Am!

“and it was good”

The planet is demonstrating God’s foreknowledge in eath’s and earth’s creature’s ability and need to change and adapt.  God never has to say, “Ut-Oh!”, and He knows exactly how to execute His plans and purposes.

Earth is more than matter.  Plants live and change- a seedling becomes a tree.  Insects and animals live in complex societies.  Humans are driven by issues of moral and emotional tennents: there is also a spiritual relm in motion.

The “natural world” is beautiful and good.  All creatures understand “nice” and “pleasant”, “comfort” and “peace”.  The opposite of these things occurs when there is a rift in the “balace of nature”, which goes against God’s original plan for Creation.

This is brought about by sin.

vs. 1 cont’d.  Without human or earthly control, the powers of Space control the vital and essential providers of life on earth.  Different gravitational pulls and pressures keep earth hanging in the precise position in this vast universe for temperatures to allow water, air, atmosphere, and life to exist on earth.  Our moon affects much that we take for granted in our bustling lives, but it is a clock and a calendar for the oceans which powers the climate, and important key to the food chain.  Space’s benevolent control over these basic and vital needs which provides more than one can begin to imagine and is so tied one part to another beyond man’s ability control or really fully understand, or do more than simply trust it will continue is just like God, too.

Then there’s the Sun.  “Nothing is hid from the heat thereof.” Thankfully, because everything needs the Sun.  All energy of any kind originates with the Sun.  All life is sustained and even able to generate by means of the Sun.  Without the Sun’s contact with earth (for earth certainly has no way to draw it) Earth would not exist as we know it)  The comparison of the Sun to God must focus on the comparison of the Sun to the Son! -And there’s nothing better than a Sonny day!

People become sick and depressed from lack of sunlight, just as from lack of Jesus.  The Sun has more than enough to go around-just like the Son.

“ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1:17

^” All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.” 1 Cor. 15:39-41

vs 1  God is Real.  He has manifested His presence in the universe to every creature through His work of Creation.  “Glory of God” – Only God could conceive of and impliment such a wondrous, complex, precious, and beautiful “machine” as Creation.  He demonstrates His Glory in His Creation.  Examine just one creature, animal or plant; consider one law of science or one molecule of water.

“The Heavens” are plural – more than one.  Outer space shows God’s Glory in that only a magnificient King of the Universe could bring such a diverse and power-filled, terrifying structure onto existance.  Now ponder that it is so unsearchably vast that we cannot even comprehend its ends (good description of God!), and He continuously keeps it all operational and working together to keep Earth hanging here, a precisly positioned speck in this enormous big empty.

In God’s creation of Outer Space, God gives us a glimpse of Who He is.  In man’s “exploration” of space, there is so much we cannot begin to comprehend – just like our understanding of God.  We are impeded in our ability to go to what we want to see, and have to peer, squinting, through a telescope, to catch a glimpse of something we try to explain – just like God (only some try to “explain away” God.)  We have often misunderstood what we’ve discovered, and our findings led to erroneous conclusions that later and through further observation had to be amended, so we align with truth (at least we should do this.)  Space is “different” from Earth.  No need of air or water, no night or day, no up or down, sometimes no gravity, sometimes a whole lot!  Space operates on a plane very alien (sorry for the pun) to what we take for granted or know “to be real” on earth – just like God.  Space is so big and powerful that it is not affected by the things of Earth.  The fiercest storms, fires, wars, have no bearing and no effect to alter the operations of Space: it stays the same.  These earthly maladies affect God, but He stays the same, nothing can alter Him.

Space seemingly has no beginning or end -just like God (He is endless, not seemingly so.)  Just the truth that the Univers goes on forever should cause all who think to contemplate GOD.