God's truth makes a good lighthouse

Psalm 43

February  14

If you didn’t know better, you might just think you were reading something by the Apostle John in this passage of Psalm 43, especially verse 3: “Oh, send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle.”

            Light and truth went hand in hand in John’s writing, making Psalm 43 a prophetic psalm. Like the psalmist, Jesus surely felt frustrated being in an “ungodly nation” even though He was born into God’s chosen people. Nevertheless, He came to His own and they did not receive Him.

If you ever feel like you are stumbling in the dark, not knowing what direction you should go in, just keep practicing the truth you do know and walk in the light that you see. 1 John 1 says, “^5b…God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. ⁶If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

            What happens however is that we don’t always walk in the light or follow the truth and then wonder later on why we are stumbling over things that we should have seen. We often will lose our our joy, our song (Ps. 43:4) and our countenance is not as bright (43:5).

How much is light and truth leading you in your walk? Jesus said that “But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:21).

The first Valentine's Day card

Psalm 119:159-168

February 14 Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day and Psalm 119 mentions love more than any other psalm. You may think, "Well of course it does, it is the longest psalm." Even so it mentions a form of love 14 times out of 176 verses, or on average every 13 verses. And this passage at the end of this great psalm mentions a form of love five times in nine verses.

Last night at a political debate there was not a lot of love shown, primarily because the candidates, especially one, was attempting to belittle and push down others in order to elevate himself. That type of self love is not love at all and will eventually self-destruct. True, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as ourselves, but there is a healthy self-love and the other self love is not love at all but selfishness. 

How can we truly experience God's love and a healthy love? "According to Thy lovingkindness" (Ps. 119:159). We can only know truly of God's love first by His word, so in a sense, we can only understand love when we understand "God's word." 

Seven times a day, the psalmist would praise God (119:165) out of his love for God and His word. He kept God's commands not for salvation, but because God's love saves us. If you have a hard time loving God's word, remember that as a result of God's love for us, His Word became flesh (John 1:1,14) and lived with us, died for us, and raised before us so that eternal life could be in us. Love God, love others, and love His word. It is His Valentine's Day card to us.