my testimony

Psalm 119:49–56 NKJV
49 Remember the word to Your servant, Upon which You have caused me to hope.
50 This is my comfort in my affliction, For Your word has given me life.
51 The proud have me in great derision, Yet I do not turn aside from Your law.
52 I remembered Your judgments of old, O Lord, And have comforted myself.
53 Indignation has taken hold of me Because of the wicked, who forsake Your law.
54 Your statutes have been my songs In the house of my pilgrimage.
55 I remember Your name in the night, O Lord, And I keep Your law.
56 This has become mine, Because I kept Your precepts.

I picture David writing each stanza (eight verses) of this psalm at different times, in different settings, at different points during his life.  I find myself reading the psalm and reacting to it the same way.

The way a particular stanza hits me may not be the same way it speaks to you.  God´s truth has many applications.

As soon as I read this stanza, I thought, that´s my testimony!  That does not mean that this should describe everybody´s testimony.  Another Christian can affirm all the truth in these eight verses but not feel like they capture the essence of their experience with knowing God.

It is also not to claim this is my testimony but no one else´s!  There are probably a lot of brothers and sisters in the Lord that would share this testimony with me.  Let me just tell you why it is mine.

49 Remember the word to Your servant, Upon which You have caused me to hope.

During college and my first two and a half years of seminary, and the year in between, I was very spiritually frustrated.  I knew I was saved.  I was confident I had been called to preach.  But I increasingly doubted the veracity of the Word of God.  I gave in to the wisdom of the world that said the Bible was full of myths and legends and only offered “spiritual truth,” not historical truth, not scientific truth.

After believing this lie for over seven years, God delivered me from this well without water.  God brought me to a place to understand, know, and believe the testimony of Jesus, “Your Word is truth.”

This was God´s Word to me, His servant.  It gave me hope!

50 This is my comfort in my affliction, For Your word has given me life.

That Word was my comfort in my affliction!  The truth of God´s Word literally gave me life for it says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

51 The proud have me in great derision, Yet I do not turn aside from Your law.

There have been times that men who were arrogant in their scholastic pedigrees have derided me for believing in a six, twenty-four hour days, miraculous creation about six thousand years ago.  I don´t care.  Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt.  I do not turn aside from Your law.

52 I remembered Your judgments of old, O Lord, And have comforted myself.

Because I know that every portion of God´s Word is truth, every portion comforts me.

53 Indignation has taken hold of me Because of the wicked, who forsake Your law.

I have and do feel indignation when the wicked slander the truth or when people forsake God´s Word because they get too “smart” or too “educated” to believe it.

54 Your statutes have been my songs In the house of my pilgrimage.

My favorite songs are about the cross.  My second favorite songs are about the Word.

55 I remember Your name in the night, O Lord, And I keep Your law.

After I came to a place to believe in the perfection and the inerrancy of the Word of God, one of the first serious studies in the Word I did was on The Names of God.  Believing that each of the Names of God were perfectly revealed and absolutely true, I believed that understanding those names would help me learn much about the character and person of God.

56 This has become mine, Because I kept Your precepts.

I can say with the psalmist, “This is mine!” 

EMAIL BRO. MIKE