for I meditate on your statutes.
I have more understanding than the elders,
for I obey your precepts. (Psalm 119:99f)
To grow in insight and understanding is a regular and proper concern for every Christian. Not to impress others, still less to curry favour with the Lord, but so that in knowing him more we might serve him and others with wisdom and in all humility.
These verses in the longest Psalm highlight 2 key factors in attaining greater insight and understanding - in growing to maturity in worshipping the living God, in following Jesus, in life in the Spirit - and they are these: meditating on what God has revealed and obeying what he has said.
Meditating - taking what the Bible discloses to us and giving it our sustained and determined, worshipful attention. Giving it time to percolate through our spiritual senses, enlarging our inner relish for God and his truth. Not simply consuming large quantities of the Bible but slowing down enough in order to taste it, to feel its power, to catch glimmers of the glory of God within its pages.
There are no shortcuts to insight - wisdom for living well and in fellowship with the Lord. It requires space and time. But the rewards more than repay the effort.
Obeying - simply doing all that God has said. Which, as we know, is far from simple - not because what he has said is inherently unclear but because our minds remain clouded by sin and its remnants. But the psalmist expresses what we can at least emulate: the desire and the determination to follow through on the call into a life lived in the presence of God, before his face, longing to please the One who has so loved us.
Obeying - simply doing all that God has said. Which, as we know, is far from simple - not because what he has said is inherently unclear but because our minds remain clouded by sin and its remnants. But the psalmist expresses what we can at least emulate: the desire and the determination to follow through on the call into a life lived in the presence of God, before his face, longing to please the One who has so loved us.
Begin there, with that desire, and often the next step comes into sharper focus as the Spirit works willingness in our hearts. Obedience leads to deeper understanding as we experience the authentication of truth in our everyday lives and in the enlarging of our hearts.
Mediating on God and his Word and then obeying what he says are the route to growing in insight and understanding. This is a compelling invitation to live in fulness.
But there is a slightly jarring note in these verses. The writer, perhaps someone still relatively young, contrasts his approach - of meditation and obedience - with their apparent lack in those who are his teachers, those who are older than him. It’s a salutary lesson being played-out before our eyes: it is possible to be a teacher of others, whether formally or informally, and not be growing in insight because we fail to meditate on God’s truth. We assume we know it, that a factual familiarity is sufficient.
Mediating on God and his Word and then obeying what he says are the route to growing in insight and understanding. This is a compelling invitation to live in fulness.
But there is a slightly jarring note in these verses. The writer, perhaps someone still relatively young, contrasts his approach - of meditation and obedience - with their apparent lack in those who are his teachers, those who are older than him. It’s a salutary lesson being played-out before our eyes: it is possible to be a teacher of others, whether formally or informally, and not be growing in insight because we fail to meditate on God’s truth. We assume we know it, that a factual familiarity is sufficient.
And it is all too possible to be an older Christian - even someone recognised as an elder - and not be putting cherished truth into practice, walking in humble obedience. We don’t automatically have wisdom to share simply because we’ve ridden these streets for a long time. It grows in soil that is cultivated by meditation and watered by obedience.
That is a significant and humbling challenge. And in that way it offers an opportunity for meditation and prayer. To consider afresh what the Lord has done for us in his Son, to defend ourselves from becoming “blind and near-sighted, forgetting that we have been cleansed from [our] past sins” (2 Peter 1:9). And to resolve, in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be renewed in our walk with him.
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That is a significant and humbling challenge. And in that way it offers an opportunity for meditation and prayer. To consider afresh what the Lord has done for us in his Son, to defend ourselves from becoming “blind and near-sighted, forgetting that we have been cleansed from [our] past sins” (2 Peter 1:9). And to resolve, in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be renewed in our walk with him.
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Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true and only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
Triumph o'er the shades of night;
Day-spring from on high, be near;
Day-star, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by Thee;
Joyless is the day's return,
Till Thy mercy's beams I see,
Till they inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.
Visit, then, this soul of mine;
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me, radiancy divine;
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more Thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day!
(Charles Wesley, 1707-88)
