Acceptable in thy Sight
Today’s Passage – Psalm 16 – 20
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
I love the Word of God. I thoroughly enjoyed the Book of Job; but I am also having a wonderful time each morning in the Psalms. As I read this morning, I was captured by the beauty of Psalm 19. Verses 1-6 are expressions of David’s worship of God. Verses 7 – 11 are remarks that lift up the Word of God, and the reader is admonished to place a higher value on the Word of God than gold. Great Advice!
However, the verses that really caught my attention were verses 12 – 14 where David prays to God regarding God’s help in keeping him from sin. In verses 12 and 13, he speaks of secret sins and presumptuous sins. The presumptuous sins are those that we do blatantly, proudly, and in public view. David begs God’s help in the removal of these things.
Verse 14 is the prayer that all of us should have on our lips and in our hearts the moment that we awake from sleep. How often do we violate our relationship with God by allowing evil thoughts to take hold of our meditations. we muse on things that are clearly outside of the will of God. Ask God to control your thought life. The minute the devil causes you to think about something that is wrong, take it to God. Ask Him to help you. Purposely divert your thoughts to things that are true, honest, just, and pure, etc. Our sin begins with the musings of our heart.
Notice also the petition regarding his words. Oh how I wish that I could take back some of my words. The tongue can be a consuming fire, a deadly poison. Why not ask God to help you get your tongue under control.
I wonder how many mistakes we could have avoided in the past had we made this our prayer? We don’t have to make the same mistake in the future. Let God control your thought life and your tongue!
Posted in Devotions by Phil Erickson with 2 comments.
How true!!! So often have my actions (or my unkind words) been directly related to some thought I entertained in my mind. It is clear to me that the only way to overcome these impulses are to immerse yourself so much in the Word of God that there’s not so much room for anything wrong! Which goes hand in hand with a constant and steady prayer life. I can see in myself the change between now (I’ve been drifting) and when I was more involved in my bible reading/prayerlife. It really does make a difference!
We tend to focus so much of our attention on what comes out of the mouth, I guess because it’s what we see, what we hear. Four words struck me with verse 19: “meditation of my heart” I’m sure most people have heard this saying; “The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart” The next time your offended by the words of another christian consider that their heart may be damaged, burdened, twisted, scorned or broken. I believe scripture says that the “heart” is exceedingly wicked, who can know it. We are so quick, myself included, to judge the words of a person but the funny thing is we cannot see their heart. So the next time a christian says something that offends you try to meditate on the condition of your heart. Ask yourself, Have I ever said offensive things? Pray that God changes your conversation and the conversation of others by cleansing the heart through thy word.