Psalm 119:111-112
If you could choose that which you are going to inherit, what would you choose? What would make you really happy? Would you say with the psalmist, "Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart. I have inclined my heart to perform Thy statutes alway, even unto the end" (Psalm 119:111, 112 )?
Do these testimonies of God give you so much joy that what you want to obtain is entrance into the kingdom of heaven, where all the citizens keep God's law perfectly, and where you will be able to do nothing but walk in perfect love before God?
God's testimonies and statutes are the laws according to which we were created, and which God designed for our life in the new Jerusalem. There we will have strict, exacting laws in which the citizens of that kingdom find great joy. They are the rejoicing of their hearts, and they will want to be keeping them continuously, everlastingly (v.112).
Now, an inheritance is obtained only through the death of one who decreed to have you receive it. Here Christ is the One Who died, in order that those given Him by the Father might enter that kingdom of righteousness, and be given a life that cannot sin but rejoices in those statutes. These by His Spirit will sing (PRC Psalter):
Thy precepts are my heritage
For daily they my heart rejoice;
To keep Thy statutes faithfully
Shall ever be my willing choice.
We are surrounded by a host that does not want that kind of future. For them it is a case of seeking this world and the lust thereof. They are interested only in what they can inherit in this life and of this world's deceptive treasures.
Are you like the psalmist, or like the world that surrounds us? Desire that wonderful inheritance that is coming in the day of Christ, and you may be sure that in God's grace you will receive it. A kingdom of perfect love is coming. In it, because of the perfect love of God, there will be a perfect love of all the citizens of that kingdom for each other.
Read: I Corinthians 13
Psalter versification: #334:4
(Words and Music of the Psalter)
Meditations on the Heidelberg Catechism
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Song for Meditation: Psalter #240
Why not sing along??
Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Isaiah 30 ; Isaiah 31 ; Isaiah 32 ; Isaiah 33:1-9
Galatians 5:1-12
Psalm 63:1-11
Proverbs 23:22
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Quote for Reflection:
“We hold it, therefore, as indubitable, indeed it should be notorious to all tolerably versant with Scripture, that the most splendid works performed by men, who are not yet truly sanctified, are so far from being righteousness in the sight of the Lord, that he regards them as sins…The most perfect thing which proceeds from man is always polluted by some stain….For a long time the world has been taught differently. A kind of good works called moral has been found out, by which men are rendered agreeable to God before they are ingrafted into Christ; as if Scripture spoke falsely when it says, “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” ( I John 5:12). How can they produce the materials of life if they are dead? Is there no meaning in its being said, that “whatsoever is not of faith is sin”? (Romans 14:23) – John Calvin
Additional Info
- Date: 19-September
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.