Friday, June 19th, 2009

Psalm 119:36-37

Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.


Greed, pride, selfishness, worldly ambition, vanity and all other things like these are the secret sins I hold on to. But these secret sins that I hold on to are the very sins that keep me from the delight, joy and happiness that can only be found in God. In order to be happy in God, I must be empty of myself. In order to be alive and vibrant in my walk with God, I must give up my own desires and let the desires of God fill and flood my soul. This is what I was designed for, and this is the war I fight every day, God be merciful to me.



The psalmist here hits the nail right on the head. Selfish gain! He realizes that his life, like mine, is a constant battle where pride and selfishness are always coming to the foreground. He realizes that there is only one remedy to this awful and disgusting sin of pride and selfishness. And that one remedy is God changing his heart to point him from himself back to God. And thus, the prayer of David to have his heart inclined naturally to God's laws, word or testimony.



You see, this is the power of the Holy Spirit in me, but I think that I fight it, I think that I war against what God is desirous of me to have. For you see, I have the new birth, I have been formed again. My natural affections need to be renewed, they need to be changed. These natural affections of mine which are so geared towards self and self-satisfaction need to be changed. My affections need to point God-ward, and not man-ward. And the only way for this to happen is for the Holy Spirit to come into my life in a more powerful way and change my affections to be God-ward.



Then David makes an even more powerful and bold request. He prays that the world would melt away to him and that all the worthless, but sparkly things that catch his eye would melt away, and what he would see would simply be God. That God would become his life, that he would be able to see that it is only in God that life is, and that without God, all is vanity and worthless. All the sparkly, shiny things that distract him need to just melt away, and God needs to become his all in all.



Isn't this what I want? Isn't this what I need? I want my heart to not be focused on the gain of this world and the things of this world, but upon God and his testimonies. I want the sparkly and shiny things of this world to no longer distract me, but I want to find life, my all in God.



Oh God, Father and maker of all things. I repent of my being distracted by the world and all that is in it. What was meant to bring glory and honor to you, what was meant to drive me to worship you all the more, I have turned into a way to get gain for myself. I have turned this world that is a show of you to a show of me. Forgive me for this my Lord and my God for Jesus' sake. Also, the shiny and sparkly things of the world have been distractions because of my weak mind and heart. I need your Spirit to focus me like a laser beam on you and on glorifying you. Please forgive me for being so easily distracted. Change my heart by your Spirit so that I might find you to be my all and all. Fill me, so that I would become small and you would become big, very big in my life. Pour your Spirit upon me today. In Jesus' name, amen.