“Open Thou mine eyes "

In Psalm 119, we have a lot of beautiful statements. Let’s just highlight a few. Verse 18 here’s a prayer: “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.” The Hebrew word for wondrous is incomprehensible, meaning too difficult to understand. Now class, let’s be honest. There are things difficult to understand in this Bible. Lots of it—very hard to understand! Then what’s the secret? Go to the Lord and depend upon Him. “Open mine eyes that I may behold difficult, incomprehensible things out of Thy law.”
There’s a prayer to understand. Look at verses 26 and 27. “I have declared my ways and Thou heardest me. Teach me Thy statutes. Make me to understand the way of Thy precepts. So shall I talk of Thy wondrous works.”
Do you ask God, “Teach me Your statutes?” Do you say, “Make me understand?” To say, “Make me understand”—and it’s because of a grammatical form of the word that it’s translated “make me to understand”—it suggests that there’s a natural tendency on our part not to do this. Somehow God needs to give us these gentle nudgings and proddings to make us understand. The psalmist was recognizing his own depravity and resistance when he says “make me to understand.”
Psalm 119:33-34. “Teach me [again the prayer] Teach me O Lord, the way of Thy statutes.” Notice back in verse 26 he said, “Teach me Thy statutes” and here he says, “Teach me the way of Thy statutes.” See when you come to study the Bible and find out the interpretation, some times it’s not just the content that you get down, but it’s the point of the content. It’s the direction in which God wants you to go by what you have learned. And sometimes we see people who are very intelligent in the Bible, but they don’t know what it means. They don’t know how to apply it. They don’t know the direction they should walk because of it. And that comes as a result of dependency upon God as well.

“Open Thou mine eyes "

is a post from Blue Letter Bible Blog

For how long?

“My last sentence is simply this: The world is lost, the God of the Bible does exist; the world is lost, but truth is truth, keep on!  And for how long?  I’ll tell you.  Keep on, keep on, keep on, keep on, and then keep on!”


 Francis A. Schaeffer, Death in the City (Chicago, 1969), page 76. Italics original.

For how long?

is a post from: Ray Ortlund

"Fellowship with Him."

"Fellowship with Him."

— 1 John 1:6

"When we were united by faith to Christ, we were brought into such complete fellowship with Him, that we were made one with Him, and His interests and ours became mutual and identical. We have fellowship with Christ in His love. What He loves we love. He loves the saints--so do we. He loves sinners--so do we. He loves the poor perishing race of man, and pants to see earth's deserts transformed into the garden of the Lord--so do we. We have fellowship with Him in His desires. He desires the glory of God--we also labour for the same. He desires that the saints may be with Him where He is--we desire to be with Him there too. He desires to drive out sin--behold we fight under His banner. He desires that His Father's name may be loved and adored by all His creatures--we pray daily, "Let Thy kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven." We have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. We are not nailed to the cross, nor do we die a cruel death, but when He is reproached, we are reproached; and a very sweet thing it is to be blamed for His sake, to be despised for following the Master, to have the world against us. The disciple should not be above His Lord. In our measure we commune with Him in His labours, ministering to men by the word of truth and by deeds of love. Our meat and our drink, like His, is to do the will of Him who hath sent us and to finish His work. We have also fellowship with Christ in His joys. We are happy in His happiness, we rejoice in His exaltation. Have you ever tasted that joy, believer? There is no purer or more thrilling delight to be known this side heaven than that of having Christ's joy fulfilled in us, that our joy may be full. His glory awaits us to complete our fellowship, for His Church shall sit with him upon His throne, as His well-beloved bride and queen." -Charles Hadden Spurgeon

The Attributes of God: Love | Blue Letter Bible: The Blog

The Attributes of God: Love | Blue Letter Bible: The Blog

Better positioned to withstand attack

“Persecution doesn’t always . . . sow the seeds of revival.  When the persecution is sufficiently systematic, severe, and sustained, as it was centuries ago in places such as modern-day Libya and Saudi Arabia, the church disperses and disappears.  The persecution in Kenya and Uganda, however, failed to stamp out the flames of faith fanned by revival.  A church already broken by its own sin and desperate need for a Savior is better positioned to withstand attack.  Revival reaches Christians who recognize and admit that God is their only hope.”
Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir (Grand Rapids, 2010), page 133.  Italics added.

Better positioned to withstand attack

is a post from: Ray Ortlund

Have You Been Set Free From Shame?

From Resurgence.
Have you been set free from shame?