Psalm 119: 9-11 “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Today's episode talks about how important the Word of God is to our staying on the path. It talks about the places to find the Word of God and what to do with it when you find it. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
How Can I Stay On the Right Path?
Psalm 119: 9-11 “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
I love this verse because it asks a question and then gives an answer. I also love it because I am someone who loves to get direction. I am not someone who likes to cook without a recipe, or someone who does well with recipes that say, “a dash of this,” or “salt to taste.” I like step by step clear instructions. I suspect that has something to do with me wanting to do everything the right way. There is a right way and a wrong way to do many things and yet there are also plenty of things that don’t have a right and wrong way to do them. God has been trying to teach me this lesson for a long time and I am a very slow learner with this lesson. A lot of the time there is not just one right way to do something and as long as you are getting it done, the how doesn’t matter as much.
I know this and yet I still want to “do it all the right way.” I think this comes out most when doing things for the Lord. I want to get it right. I want him to be delighted me. I am always searching for answers on what God is calling me to do, and what God wants from all of us. So, this verse is great for me because it asks a question, tells us the answer and then reinforces what was just said by repeating it in a different way. I also like it because it deals with a problem we have probably encountered, how can a young person say on the path of purity? If we have children then we have asked ourselves and hopefully God this question many times. We just want our kids to stay on the straight and narrow. This verse doesn’t just apply to our kids, or the young people in the world, it is for all of us and it is great advice.
Lets look at what it says, “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.” This is great, we have our answer. We just have to live according to God’s word and we are all set. Does anyone else hear the answer to that question and just get more questions? Questions like which words from God, where do we find these words from God? I often think it would be great if there was a step by step guide to living my life. Just tell me exactly what to do. God does actually give us direction on how to live our lives. God started way back when Moses led the promised people out of Egypt. God knew his people had developed some really bad habits while they were living in Egypt so He gave Moses the 10 commandments to help guide them in their day to day lives. We are lucky enough to have the benefit of these commandments to help guide us in living our lives too!
Another place we can look in the Bible for direction in our lives is the Proverbs. The Proverbs give us great direction and definitely teach us some things we should do and those we should not do. For instance Proverbs 29:13 says, “Those who conceal their sins do not prosper, but those who confess and renounce them find mercy.” This instructs us not to conceal our sin. We should confess our sin and repent and then we will find mercy. That is a great one as the enemy tries to convince us we are better off if we don’t tell anyone what we have done. Then the shame sets in and it starts to eat us alive. The enemy tells us we will never be forgiven. However, if we listened to this proverb and just came right out and confessed it and repented then we would be forgiven and we would have no need for shame.
Proverbs 1:8 says, “Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.” This is another great one that many of us realize too late in life. When we are little we don’t want to listen to our parents and then when we are teens we decide that our parents don’t know what they are talking about. They tell us something and we do the opposite because we are sure they don’t know what it is like to be a teen. We are sure they have never experienced the things we are experiencing. We see them as adults and forget they needed to pass through the teen years just as we do. I have heard that when children get to about their mid 20s they start to come around to asking their parents questions or for advice. We could all save ourselves some heartache if we just listened to this proverb and listened to our mothers and fathers. They are only trying to protect us.
I asked some questions earlier and I want to make sure to answer them. Sometimes I ask questions to get us all thinking. They are questions that only you have the answer too. However, today’s questions do have answers. The questions were, “Which words from God and where do we find these words from God?” Which words from God is an easy question to answer, all of them. If God said it in the Bible, God meant it. He did not say anything in the Bible casually. The Bible was intentionally thought out and written by people who were very close to God and were inspired by the Holy Spirit. You can stand on every single word of the Bible. The Bible will not lead you astray.
The second part of the question was where do we find these words from God. One place we just talked about and that is the Bible. There are so many good words in the Bible. If you haven’t read the Bible I suggest you start with the Gospels or the Psalms. Both are good. I also love Acts. If you want to have someone guide you through reading it, I suggest the Bible in a Year Podcast with Father Mike Schmitz, he is amazing and you learn so much! Another place to find the word of God is by sitting and listening. God will speak to you if you give hime the time to listen. If you aren’t familiar with this idea let me first say that usually when God is speaking to you, it will sound like your voice in your heard. This is important to realize because if we are expecting a great big booming voice to come from the sky, we will either be greatly disappointed or we will think He is not talking to us because we aren’t hearing any booming voices. If you need guidance, I mean who among us doesn’t, then you can ask the Lord a question and the sit quietly and He can give you an answer, or some direction anyway.
When you are sitting there listening, whatever comes into your mind, right after you asked the question is usually from God. Don’t question it, don’t try and talk yourself out of it, write it down and pray about it. Listening to God’s word may take some time and some practice as we not to believe that God will talk to us. I guarantee He wants to talk to you, He is just waiting for you to stop and listen. Will we give Him a few minutes a day to see what God, our Father in Heaven wants to say to us? I heard a saying while in my Encounter School of Ministry Boston Campus class and then I heard it again that the School of Prophetic Ministry that we just had. The saying is, “The value you place on the word you receive, determines the power you receive from it. In other words, God can tell you something and yet if you don’t believe it, if you don’t stand on that word, it won’t have power in your life. Don’t just ask God to talk with you and then ignore what He says. Write it down, go back and read it, remind yourself of it when times are hard. If you have received something from the Lord, you can stand on that word as a promise. You can use it as an affirmation or a something you remind yourself of every single day!
The last line of the verse says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” I didn’t want to end today without pointing this line out. I am sure we all wish we didn’t sin. Sin breaks our relationship with God and who would want that? This verse gives us the answer to our problem of sinning. When we have hidden His word in our hearts then we might not sin against Him anymore. In order to hide His word in our hearts, we first have to know His word. Get familiar with His word, read it, listen to it, memorize it. If we want instructions on how to live this crazy, unpredictable life, all we need to do is turn to the Lord’s word and we will find our answers.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we want to hear your word, please open our ears, our hearts and our minds. We want to be able to stand on your Word Lord, please help us, show us how. Show us that your word is awesome and can be such a beacon of light in our dark times. Lord, I ask that you speak to each person listening to this episode sometime this week. I ask that they be able to hear what you say to them and that it blesses them. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with Your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. My book is for sale on my website right now. If you buy from my website I will write a personal message and sign it before sending it to you. Click Here for the book and Click Here for my website in the show notes. I also want to remind you that I send out a weekly newsletter with one of my podcast episodes, the most popular ones, and also an update on what is going on in my life. When you sign up you also get an audio training on how to invite Jesus into your everyday life. Click Here to sign up for the Newsletter! Thank you for all your support, I really appreciate it! I look forward to meeting you hear again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend!