Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Psalms 119:33-40
Ps 119:33-40 He
Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees; then I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. Fulfill your promise to your servant, so that you may be feared. Take away the disgrace I dread, for your laws are good. How I long for your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness.
Matt 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
I knew a lady in her early nineties who loved to study the word of God. One day I called her and asked what she was doing, and she said that she had been studying the book of Revelation again to refresh her mind. It had been over two years since she had last done this, so she spent at least eight hours for either two or three days in the book. Often, I would pick her up on Sunday mornings to go to church, and most of them she would tell me that she had listened to four or five sermons while getting ready and eating her breakfast. That is hungering for righteousness.
With her, this did not start at ninety. She had been studying the Bible all of her life, even while she worked outside the home and raised six children along the way. She is the only person who intimidated me while preaching just because she was in the audience. I knew that if I made any mistake, she would know it! But she would never correct me with a statement. If I mis-spoke, she would ask a question about it, as though she really didn’t know – but I knew she knew.
All through the years, she taught Ladies Bible classes or sat in classes and added what she could in way of comments. Along the way, she wrote an adult Sunday School workbook on Isaiah, one on Jeremiah and Lamentations and then a commentary workbook on Revelation. She was always learning, but not just for the sake of knowledge. She was constantly seeking ways to apply what she knew and continually tying passages with others in their meaning. My mother spent her ninety-five years on earth, preparing to be with the Lord in eternity.
O Lord God, thank you for my mother who did all she could to teach me and my siblings to love you and to live for you. Thank you for her kindness, her patience, for the love she showed to others, even when she disagreed with us. But even as I lift her up in my eyes, I know that she never depended on her own righteousness, but solely on your grace. Help me have that same love for you and for your word and then to apply it in my life. Use me to help others as I have the opportunity to do so. I praise you and thank you in the name of Jesus.
Robert
