Learning To Walk In Freedom

Psalm 119:33-48

33Teach me, O LORD,

to follow every one of your principles.

34Give me understanding and I will obey your law;

I will put it into practice with all my heart.

35Make me walk along the path of your commands,

for that is where my happiness is found.

36Give me an eagerness for your decrees;

do not inflict me with love for money!

37Turn my eyes from worthless things,

and give me life through your word.

38Reassure me of your promise,

which is for those who honor you.

39Help me abandon my shameful ways;

your laws are all I want in life.

40I long to obey your commandments!

Renew my life with your goodness.

41LORD, give to me your unfailing love,

the salvation that you promised me.

42Then I will have an answer for those who taunt me,

for I trust in your word.

43Do not snatch your word of truth from me,

for my only hope is in your laws.

44I will keep on obeying your law

forever and forever.

45I will walk in freedom,

for I have devoted myself to your commandments.

46I will speak to kings about your decrees,

and I will not be ashamed.

47How I delight in your commands!

How I love them!

48I honor and love your commands.

I meditate on your principles.

The man who almost became Jonathan Edwards’s son-in-law was quite different from the intellectual minister. David Brainerd, pioneer missionary to the American Indians in New Jersey, was engaged to Edwards’s daughter but died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty before they could get married.

Jonathan Edwards was so impressed with Brainerd that he published the account of his life, including Brainerd’s journal. God used this remarkable book to fire the lives of missionaries like David Livingstone, William Carey, Henry Martyn, and others.

Brainerd had struggled for nearness to God. Unlike Edwards, Brainerd was not afraid of expressing his emotions. He went through anguish before coming to a “full assurance of hope.” Afterward, he seemed to concentrate more on the Psalms, and his aspirations stemmed from various verses in the book.

One of the marks of a true Christian, Brainerd said, was delight in God’s Word. Verses like Psalm 119:47 became his experience. Earlier he had read the Bible out of a sense of duty, but later he delighted in it. He didn’t feel as though he were in bondage, but rather he saw obedience to God’s Word as liberating. He quoted verse 45: “I will walk in freedom.”

Jesus described this freedom that comes from God’s Word as he said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

I hear your Word in love;

In faith your Word obey;

O send your Spirit from above

To teach me, Lord, your way.

ISAAC WATTS

Bible Networking

Relate Acts 4:29 with verses 42-46 of this psalm.

Notable Quotable

“Saints feel no bondage in sanctity. The Spirit of holiness is a free spirit; he sets men at liberty and enables them to resist every effort to bring them under subjection.”

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON