Psalm 19
January 23, 2022
Heavenly Father, how good you are to have created the nighttime and daytime skies. Truly they display your greatness. We see the amazing number and variety of stars, now more than ever with today’s sophisticated telescopes, and we see how amazing you are. We behold the sun in its daily course across the sky—its beauty, its power, its warmth, its life-giving capability—and we see how beautiful, powerful, and life-giving you are.
And how striking that you should describe the sun as a happy new bridegroom and joyful champion runner. You too, Lord, are joyfully capable. How wonderful that you are neither unhappy nor incapable, neither morose nor powerless. How blessed we are to know you, this kind of God, and to be the beneficiaries of your joy and your capability!
But then, blessing on top of blessing, you have given us something even better than the skies, the stars, the sun. You have revealed yourself in your written word. How amazing! More than the powerful revealing of yourself in the wordless beauty of the sun, you give us words on the page, words on the screen, words in our hearing—your very words: laws, statutes, precepts, commands, and decrees. And for us, in the New Covenant age, all the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
O Lord, thank you! Thank you for the written word, the Scriptures, so much greater than your revelation in the skies. May we receive your written word as from the God who is joyfully capable, the God who directs the sun in all its power and beauty and life-giving vitality. May we know you rightly, the author of the Scriptures. They come to us not from a morose God, not from an inadequate God, not from a God deficient in knowledge and wisdom.
O Lord, may we regard your Scriptures as David did here, as Jesus the Son of David did when he walked this earth. Renew and fortify our confidence in your word as perfect, trustworthy, radiant, right, pure, and firm. May we know in our own experience that the Scriptures are more valuable than money, sweeter than honey. May we experience ever more deeply your intended influence of the word on our lives: refreshment, wisdom, joy, light, and healthy, holy fear of you.
We ask this, Lord, because we need it so much in our day, a day of confusion and turmoil. We ask this, Lord, for all the generations represented in our church family, especially the younger generations who are growing up in such enormous social upheaval and who also have such huge opportunity to pass on to others the treasure of Scripture, its truth and good news.
Save us, Lord, from skewing your word. Save us from approaching it wrongly. Save us from Pharisaism, legalism, and other unhealthy mistreatment of your word and people. Lead us in repenting of a relationship with the Bible that is anything less than what we see in this psalm. Heal us of wounds or scars or injuries of one sort or another that have spun our trajectory in life away from a relationship with you and your word as painted so beautifully in this psalm. Keep us close the focal point of all the Scriptures, the Lord Jesus Christ—his life, death, and resurrection.
Who can discern their errors, Lord? We can’t. We can’t see all our sins. We are often clueless. Acquit us of those hidden faults. Keep us from willful sins. We want to live blameless lives, innocent of great transgression. Do this on the basis of Jesus’ perfect life and sufficient sacrificial death.
O Father, bring your written word to the world. We hold such a treasure in our laps. So much of the world does not yet know it. Bring the good news in spoken and written form to the Bibleless peoples of the world. Bring your word to family and friends within our own spheres of influence. We think of some of these folks right now, and we pray that you give them new eyes to see your glory in the sky and your glory in the written word. May they not suppress the truth in unrighteousness, but rather come to see you, and your Son, Jesus Christ, for who you really are. May they embrace the gospel, revealed in the Bible, and know you as their own Rock and Redeemer.
And Lord, may our future pastor, for whom we continue to search and pray, be a man whose life is shaped by this psalm. And Lord, amid the pandemic and other current turmoil, may our path be directed by the wisdom of this psalm.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. And all God’s people said, “Amen!”