Read Psalm 119:153-160 153Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. 154Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise! 155Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. 156Great is your mercy, O Lord; give me life according to your rules. 157Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. 158I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands. 159Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life according to your steadfast love. 160The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.
Three times the psalmist will plead for life – Give me life. But what is the connection between the word of God and the life of God? In what way does the word bring life? The psalmist could answer this question in a number of ways.
The promises in the word of God give this temporal life its hope and its meaning.
Obedience to the rules in God’s word set us on the path of the good life of God within his design for us.
But the psalmist is no legalist. He would never allow his life to be reduced down to a checklist of rule keeping. In the end it is the steadfast love of God that quickens and revitalizes him. God’s unconditional covenant love. David will settle for nothing less. If it is not this merciful love of God that is the source of life, then he is a dead man in a dead religion.
In Christ our cry is the same – Give me life according to your steadfast love. Quicken me. Revitalize me. Resurrect me again and again. Not by my obedience, but by your indwelling, unconditional love for me in Christ.
To live is Christ is not to merely survive, but to thrive within the steadfast love of God for us in Christ. To have the same love within us that Jesus has in him is the promise God has made to us. To know God is eternal life. To know God by our union with Christ is his life giving rule.
You: What would you say is your source of life? Be honest.
You in Christ: Union with Christ is union with God’s covenant love. How does this truth inspire you today?
Christ in you: Why must we know God through Christ before we can know God through his rules?
Pray: Father, give me life according to your steadfast love. Your covenant mercy. Your unconditional grace for me in Christ. Amen.
To Live is Christ 