The ABC's of a Faithful LifeSample

What does God want us to understand about him and theimportance of his teaching?

Read Psalm 119:9–39

When we choose to value God’s word and apply its teachings to our daily lives, God is able to purify and refine our hearts and minds. It’s important to note as you read through this psalm that the psalmist does not think of himself as someone who demonstrates perfect obedience. He, like us, knows the difficulty of living apart from God’s strength.

This Psalm is both a prayer of praise for who God is and a prayer that expresses our great need for him. Remember, the Jewish children were taught the Hebrew alphabet, along with the fundamentals of a faithful life, by memorizing these verses. The same can be true for us today.

Beth: (bait)

1. What is the result of walking according to God’s word?
2. What is crucial for us if we want to follow God?

Gimel: (geemehl)

1. What happens when we study God’s word consistently?
2. Why should the Bible delight us?

Daleth: (dollett)

1. Why did God give us his word?
2. What will God do when we faithfully and sincerely seek his word?

He: (hey)

1. How do God’s laws change our focus?
2. Why is it important for us to live according to God’s word?

Conclusion

“How I long for your precepts! In your righteousness preserve my life.” Psalm 119:40

The more we study the Bible, the more God becomes an active, powerful presence in our lives. God wants us to know him. We call the Bible God’s word because it is God speaking his will into our lives. From that relationship with God comes our deepest sense of well-being and joy. “Faith in God” becomes a reality because we discover his reality.

A.W. Tozer: “The word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.”

God wants us to be fully faithful to his word, because then we can walk fully with him.

Charles Spurgeon: “If the grace of God enables us to maintain in our hearts the loving memory of God’s commandments, it will surely yet restore us to practical holiness. That man cannot be utterly lost whose heart is still with God. If he be gone astray in many respects, yet still, if he be true in his soul’s inmost desires, he will be found again, and fully restored. Yet let the reader remember the first verse of the psalm while he reads the last: the major blessedness lies not in being restored from wandering, but in being upheld in a blameless way even to the end.”