Today's Journal
LOVE OF INSTRUCTION
/>How I love your instruction!It is my meditation all day long.
Your command makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is always with me.
I have more insight than all my teachers
because your decrees are my meditation.
I understand more than the elders
because I obey your precepts.
I have kept my feet from every evil path
to follow your word.
I have not turned from your judgments,
for you yourself have instructed me.
How sweet your word is to my taste—
sweeter than honey in my mouth.
I gain understanding from your precepts;
therefore I hate every false way.
(Psalm 119:97-104)
The Psalmist says: I’m wiser than my enemies; I have more insight than all my teachers, I understand more than the elders, I have kept my feet from every evil path, I have not turned from your judgments, for you yourself have instructed me…. What? ‘You yourself (the Lord) have instructed me…’ Anyone who says such things now is viewed as pretty sketchy out there on the religious trial as though the Lord no longer speaks this way to his children.
I don’t think most of us want much instruction, to be corrected, to learn a new way, to see from a different perspective… or to deal with a system that is not ‘our system’ of religious culture and history. You know… “we are Methodists, we have always been Methodists and my granddaddy was a Methodist,” or Reformed, Covenant, Pentecostal and the rest…whatever. Most of us like things the way they are. Besides that, learning from Jesus requires a yoke…
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” Jesus