The Source of Our Understanding

This week we come to the fifth stanza of Psalm 119, verses 33-40, and we find a man coming to the right place for the right lesson. Look at his requeststarting in verse 33, “Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes; and I will keep it to the end.” That’s where we need to go…to the source…we must come to Him if we are to understand His way.

There is an amazing transformation in the NT—the disciples walked with Jesus and never seemed to get it, but after the resurrection they were different men. The men who denied him died for Him. The men who ran from the guards charged into danger and faced it with great boldness. The beginning of the change is found in Luke 24 where the risen Jesus meets with the disciples. In verse 44ff, He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures…”. He then told them that He was sending them to the world, but first He called them to go and wait until they were ‘clothed with power from on high.’

Jesus opened their minds and at Pentecost, filled them with His Spirit, and they were never the same. These ‘uneducated’ men baffled the educated because they had been in the School of Grace. Acts 16:40 says that Lydia believed because the Lord opened her heart. 1 John 5:20 says, “And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”

You might say, I wish I had Jesus to teach me what He taught the disciples and you do—His Spirit is within you and the NT is the result of Him leading them to write down Jesus’ teaching for us. Learn to ask Him to teach you, but notice what the psalmist asks, “Teach me, O LORD, the way of your statutes.” He wants to know the way…not just facts about the Word, but to know the way so that he can apply it.

Many want to know facts for facts sake, but the writer wants to know the way of God and promises, “I will keep it to the end.” He isn’t interested in knowing trivia—he wants to know the way so that he can follow it to the very end of his life…he goes to the source.