Psalm 119:7-8
Plant a live seed properly, and you are going to see results. Plant an assortment of seeds, and each one will bring forth its own kind of plant with its own peculiar leaves, flowers, and fruits. So it is when God plants in us the new life of Christ. Then a life that keeps God's statutes will appear.
The psalmist in Psalm 119:7, 8 says this in these words: "I will praise Thee with an upright heart, when I shall have learned Thy righteous judgments. I will keep Thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly." And the point is that when God gives us an upright heart, by implanting the life of Christ in us, we are going to do what Christ did. We are going to be plants whose leaves are God's statutes, and whose flowers and fruit are praise to God. And by keeping God's statutes our deeds speak louder than our words. They too say that God is God alone, and that we are His humble, willing servants. These flowers, this praise, will be seen in us.
Now it takes the seed of that new life to make us learn God's commandments and to call them righteous judgments. Having the life of Christ we say with Him that what God judges to be right is right, and what He judges to be sin we condemn and hate with Him.
Still more. If we really have that new life in us, we will delight so much in it that we will pray to God that He never take it from us. Our Psalter versification has it beautifully this way:
To Thee my praise sincere shall rise
When I thy righteous judgments learn:
Forsake me not, but be my guide,
And from Thy truth I will not turn.
There you have it! Knowing God's law because we have been given an upright heart, we will want God to continue to be our guide. We will not want Him to forsake us, that is, take away that new life in Christ from us. But we will want to be led ever more deeply into keeping His law, and into praising God.
How about it? What leaves, flowers, and fruit does your life display? Do your actions say that you want God to be your guide, or is it more delightful to have Satan mislead you?
Read: John 15
Psalter versification: #321:4
Daily Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism
Song for Meditation: Psalter #354
Why not sing along??
Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Deuteronomy 31; Deuteronomy 32:1-27
Luke 12:8-34
Psalm 78:32-55
Proverbs 12:21-23
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Quote for Reflection:
"…Although the satisfaction of Christ, the mediator of our sins, is perfect, yet all do not obtain deliverance through it, but only those who believe the gospel, and apply to themselves the merits of Christ by a true faith." --Zacharias Ursinus
Additional Info
- Date: 7-April
Heys, John A.
Rev. John A. Heys was born on March 16, 1910 in Grand Rapids, MI. He was ordained and installed into the ministry at Hope, Walker, MI in 1941. He later served at Hull, Iowa beginning in 1955. In 1959 he accepted the call to serve the South Holland, IL Protestant Reformed Church. He received and accepted the call to Holland, Michigan Protestant Reformed Church in 1967. He retired from the active ministry in 1980. He entered into glory on February 16, 1998.