We are commanded to delight in God’s Word and to meditate on it day and night (Psalm 1:2). But we live in a world full of distractions that can make it hard to pause and step aside from our busyness to focus on consuming God’s word. This is why it's so important to find ways that will encourage and remind us to connect with God and His Word.
Today, let’s look at Psalm 119 and be reminded of five reasons to love God’s word.
1. It will keep your way pure
How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. (Psalm 119:9-11)
Being a Christian does not exempt us from temptation especially in a world that glorifies sin. As Christians who want to please the Lord in all that we do, we know how hard it is to keep our way pure sometimes. Yet the Bible gives us instructions on how to do this: guard our lives with God’s word and store it in our hearts.
The more we know God’s word, the more discerning we will be and when our minds are filled with His word, His commands and His promises, we have armor against the temptations that lurk around us.
2. Comfort in afflictions
This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. (Psalm 119:50)
God’s word is a great comfort during hard times. It gives us the encouragement that we need and it reminds us of God’s power and how He is greater than anything that we are going through. It reminds us that we are not alone and that God is for us.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)
3. It gives hope
My soul longs for your salvation; I hope in your word. (Psalm 119:81)
In connection with the comfort that God's Word brings is the hope that we can find in it. Written in God’s word are the promises that are yet to be fulfilled, and as believers in Christ, these promises are also for us. Therefore we can have hope and we can rejoice even in tough times.
4. It bears witness to God’s faithfulness
Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. (Psalm 119:89-90)
God’s word was written over a span of thousands of years by different men (inspired by the Holy Spirit) throughout different times in history, yet all of it has this harmony and everything that’s written in it bears witness in God’s faithfulness.
All the testimonies about God enable us to trust Him even more. Because with His word as evidence of God’s character, it means that we are not just blindly believing, but we really are worshipping the One true God written in the Bible.
5. It gives guidance
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105)
His word gives wisdom, it guides us and lights our path, directing us as we live our lives. His word is living and active, and it is sufficient. Even though it was written centuries ahead of us, the principles it teaches are like gold that we can still use even today.
May this encourage you today to read, study, and love God’s word even more!