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Psalm 119 - Waw

The student has experienced just a little of the blessedness of knowing and keeping God's Word.  But now, having advanced just that little, he's also begun to realize how much more blessedness there must still be before him as he goes on learning.  To realize it he needs two things: he needs a continually deepening relationship to God Himself and he needs a growing application to his life of God's Word. He prays now for these things.

For a deepening relationship to God Himself he needs greater and greater realization of God's mercies.  So he prays, "Let Your mercies come also to me, O Lord - Your salvation according to Your Word."  Growth in his relationship to God depends upon God's ongoing lovingkindness to him in the experiences of life each day. It's the answer to the prayer of verse 17, where he said, "Deal bountifully with Your servant.  The "bountiful dealing" he needs will come when Jehovah, by His Spirit, reminds him of the Word and enables him to obey it.  That's the salvation and mercy of God. The student needs more and more of it. 

And there are those who ridicule and even persecute him.  But the kind of relationship to God he prays for will give him the answer. The adversaries are always saying, "If there's a real God in your life, how do you know it - what difference does He make?"  The changed life will adequately answer that question.

And not only will it give him an answer to other people, but it will make all the difference to him personally as well.  It satisfies his need for a continually growing application to His life of that Word.  When God blesses His Word to him, then, he says, he shall "keep Your law continually - forever and ever - and I will walk at liberty."  The kind of liberty he wants is freedom from sin - a freedom that can come only from seeking to know and obey God's Word, and that can be successful only by God's blessing!  He wants, in other words, to be a successful student!

He tells God that if he can experience that kind of true success, then he can and will shout God's salvation from the housetops!  In fact, he'll be able even to speak about it before kings without shame!  With that kind of success, his delight in the word will continue to grow without limit, and he will "lift his hands to that Word" - be continually praising God for it.  Thus his meditation in the Word will also grow continually.  In other words, his whole relationship to God will grow without limit!

That's what we need too!  We too need a continually deepening relationship to God Himself and a growing application to our lives of His Word.  We need His salvation to make our lives truly different from those around us.  We need His blessing so that we'll truly experience liberty from sin - so that we'll be able to unashamedly testify before anyone in this world about His salvation.  Oh may we be students who learn to pray this prayer!

                       Bountiful Word

Thanks again Pastor.
Today I am encouraging myself in the Lord.  He has kept reminding me that "the rains that he sends are tokens of forgiveness".  I have brought a problem to him.  It would seem impossible to man but the God of Jacob has told me to praise Him and believe for a miracle. I am applying God's "Word" to my life just as you say here. I know it works but there are times when it is good to have encouragement from our brethren.  
thank-you for "Waw" and I find that this fits well with Psalm 107 which is full of promise and praising.  "He sent His word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions"...Ps 107:20.
We need to get "The Word" into our memories, to feed upon it and then He speaks to us .......Yes "apply the Word" folks just as the good Pastor advises.

Spurgeon calls it "The Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith".wow.........God is a banker who never says "no"........

Jenny