Psalm 119:35 Make me to go in the path of your commandments; for therein do I delight. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments. To go is to keep moving, to keep advancing. The earnest man wants to progress in the Divine life. The Christian stamp is put on this truth by the apostle, when he says, "I count not myself to have apprehended;" "I press toward the mark." The good man wants - I. PROGRESS IN THE APPREHENSION OF GOD'S COMMANDMENTS. All the command-meats of God cannot be made clear even to the understanding of a child or of a young Christian. They concern spheres and things which are known only through the experience of life, and cannot be made plain to the child or the young Christian. And it is a deeper thought that only the formality and externality of Divine Law can ever come to any man at first; he must grow into the spirituality of it. Contrast the spheres for which the young Christian needs Divine rules, with the spheres for which the advanced and experienced Christian needs the guidance of the Divine eye, and the progression will at once be manifest. II. PROGRESS IN FIXING THE RELATION OF THE COMMANDMENTS TO LIFE. At first the commands seem outside us, and are interesting studies. As we "go in the path" of them we gradually recognize their personal relations; they directly concern us; they fit to unfolding circumstances and conditions. Getting God's will applied to cherished moods of mind, to fixed habits of conduct, to unfolding relations and responsibilities, to unexpected times of strain, comes to be the most real work of the religious life. Life is the path which God's revealed will marks out for us, and it is our work to keep the path. III. PROGRESS IN THE CHARACTER AND SPIRIT OF THE OBEDIENCE OFFERED. At first the service of God, and obedience to his holy Law, is a strain. Perhaps not absolutely at first, because the waves of early impulse bear young souls for a while into an easy obedience. Just after the first a rebound comes, a time of dullness, and then obedience is the strain of constant effort. The will battles with the feeling. But we go in the path, and gradually the strain passes, the love dominates the will, and bears it to an obedience that says, "I delight to do thy will, O God." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.WEB: Direct me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in them. |
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