LOCKET VERSES         WEEK FIVE

The Psalmist said that God maketh my feet like hinds’ feet.  The hind is a deer, and the usual reference is to the Mid-eastern red deer.  The hind is especially adept at carefully picking its way through steep and treacherous pathways.  It can walk so quietly through a forested area that possible enemies will not be alerted.  No twigs will be broken, not a rock overturned.  Every sense of the hind seems to be fine tuned.  At the slightest sound of an enemy, it will take graceful flight.  Even in quick flight, its feet seem to unerringly know the pathway ahead and rarely does a hind stumble or trip into a hole.  While at rest, the hind is a picture of peace and serenity, yet always alert to its surroundings.  Its beauty and grace is always evident whether it is climbing, leaping over bushes or quietly grazing.  It has been given special abilities by its Creator which we can admire.  This is the animal that David uses in his analogy.  When we place our lives in God’s hands, He allows us the use of very special abilities available only to the redeemed of God.  He equips the Christian with every tool he will need to walk the pathway of life in victory.  Many times in life we will come to areas of that pathway that are strewn with difficulties, the way will become rocky and steep, and the designated place of walking in God’s plan will be narrow.  With hinds’ feet, we can carefully and gracefully pick our way.  We do not have to lose our balance, slip or slid back.  Where mere human feet would not be able to find a firm stepping stone, the "spiritual" feet of a hind will be firmly planted.  We can climb higher and higher, through more difficult and challenging pathways, all because of our hinds’ feet.  At the peak of each hill of seeming difficulty, we will be able to stand on the top, basking in God’s sunshine, breathing in His cool crisp air.  Other creatures may have to stay in the lowlands because they can not climb, but not us, we have hinds’ feet.  Just like all of our spiritual gifts from God, it is always our choice whether or not to use them.  We can chose our clumsy "feet of clay," or put on the "grace-full" feet of the hind.  Today, don’t stay in the valley of the shadows of your problems.  Use your hinds’ feet and gracefully climb up God’s pathway.  Carefully step between the debris that Satan has placed in an attempt to trip you.  Steadily, skillfully climb higher.  As others watch your climb, they, too will be struck by your beauty and grace.  It will be evidence of the design of your Creator for the Christian.  Don’t be hesitant, climb up the seemingly impossible roadways of your life in victory.  Did you notice the end of the verse?  God, Himself, setteth me upon my high places.  Each place, each pathway is uniquely designed.  It is that unique place that God has designed especially for you.  We do not have to tread someone else’s pathway, someone who has been given different talents or abilities.  God knows each one of us and with that knowledge, He has carefully chosen the unique and special place that is His best for us.  It is a "high" place.  Up in the clear shining of His love there is a place prepared for you.  Far above the mire of sin, free from the chains that would bind you to earthly things.  Let God set you there today, as you choose to walk with hinds’ feet.

This verse teaches us some precious lessons about our God.  The more we study our Bible, the more we will learn about the true character of our Lord.  As we increase in knowledge of Him, we will find ourselves falling more deeply in love with the One who has saved us.  An unsaved world has many false images of the character of God.  Some view Him as a harsh dictator, others as an uninterested and vague being.  We can know Him for who He really is, the God of our salvation, One who is personally and vitally interested in us.  Many false religions teach that a person must be constantly striving to gain any hope of salvation.  They teach that an entire lifetime must be spent running after salvation and then, perhaps, in the last dying moments, a "worthy" soul may be able to grasp the edge of that prize.  Praise the Lord, the Bible never teaches such a false doctrine.  The truth of God’s salvation is that He wants to give it to us.  It is His desire that all men would have eternal life.  For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth... (I Timothy 2:3-4)  Sadly, not all men accept God’s gift of salvation, but our verse in Psalms lets us glimpse God’s outstretched hand, offering His love and grace to us.  Because none of us are worthy or capable on our own, God in His mercy gives it to us as a free gift of His love.  We can thank the Captain of our salvation for giving us His "shield."  Sad to say, many will refuse the gift, or having seen its value, cast it aside.  It would be like the soldier in mortal danger during a battle refusing the aid of his captain and pushing aside the captain’s shield that could save him from the arrows of the enemy.  The good Captain has graciously held out His shield to cover our own defenselessness before the enemy, death.  If you are saved, God has given to you the shield of His salvation.  It is your eternal protection.  When in the battle of life we seem ready to falter, God will hold us up with His right hand.  Having been placed in the army of the Lord, we can have the confidence that our Captain is always aware of our situation.  He is there to hold us up, no matter what danger is before us.  When we are weak, His strong hands will gird us round about and steady our faltering steps.  Instead of fainting in the battle, we can stand strong.  When the world views us, they will see us standing, firmly in the onslaught of trouble.  We can know that it is not in our own strength that we stand, because we can feel the strong right hand of the Lord holding us up.  The last part of this verse is so beautiful.  Thy gentleness hath made me great.  The world seems to always want to push and prod us into its mold.  Harshness and anger seem to abound.  But God, in His loving way, uses His gentleness to teach us the deep lessons of success that would make us great.  We need to employ some of that same gentleness today as we deal with our children and grandchildren, husbands and friends.  Using that gentleness successfully can help each of them to be great for the Lord.  Any other dealings on our part through anger or harshness will only result in failure.  Lord, help me this day to be an instrument of Thy gentleness in the lives of those I love.

This verse is the first of a beautiful portion of Psalm 19 that many of us have sung as a song.  From verse seven through ten, the Psalmist sings forth the perfection of the law, statutes and fear of the Lord in the lives of those that follow Him.  Each verse is a precious declaration concerning the Lord.  Each verse also shows the effects in the life of a believer when they desire God’s best. Verse seven starts with the declaration: The law of the LORD is perfect. Isn’t it wonderful that God’s Word declares things in absolutes!  The modern day world would try to tell us that there is no such thing as an absolute, but praise the Lord, as Christians, we know that is a lie!  God’s salvation is absolute, His principles deal in absolutes, we can rely on them, because we can rely on the absolute character of God, Himself.  What a sterling absolute we study today: God’s Word is perfect: without error, without compromise, without duality, not to be questioned in integrity or quality.  We need to rest in this truth.  There is nothing to be added to the Word of God and nothing that we should take away.  While as Christians, we would all agree with this, we must be careful not to break our own rules.  It is not just enough to guard the written Word of God as an academic exercise, rejecting the writings of cults that add to the canon of Scripture or rejecting "versions" that would rob us of the totality of the Word of God.  We must also make practical application in our lives.  If we say, The law of the Lord is perfect, we must add: "perfect in my life."  We must not water down the clear teachings of the Word of God for our lives, in our families or in our church.  Just because another way may seem convenient or more in line with present day methods, does not justify violations of God’s commands.  We need to realize that if God’s Word says something, it is true.  Regardless of what the world may say or what we may have been taught in the past, God’s way is always best.  God’s laws are perfect.  So many times we hear the preacher challenge us clearly from God’s Word and we know that we need to change something in our lives, but we rationalize and convince ourselves to disregard the message.  We talk ourselves out of victory!  When we refuse to heed God’s convicting Spirit, we are saying to the Lord, "God, Your way is not perfect."  To refuse to acknowledge the perfection of the Word of God in everyday matters seems rather strange considering that when it came to the matter of greatest eternal significance, we agreed whole-heartedly that His way and His Word were perfect regarding salvation.  His Law forms a unity, His Word is undivided.  It is the same law, or Word, that converts the soul!  Out of that law, we find all we need for eternal salvation and all we need for present victory!  How can we follow the Lord in obedience to His Word for our eternal salvation and then fail to keep His Word in regards to our everyday life?  Oh, how we should yearn to be able to declare with absolute assurance, The law of the Lord is perfect!  "It converted my soul and it can change my life!"  What a victory we find in the second part of the verse, The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.  God has always proven Himself.  Down through the ages, His testimony has been sure.  We can count on it.  He will uphold us as part of His sure testimony when we live for Him.  He will make us wise.  In the simplicity of our human minds, we could never comprehend all that God desires for us.  But with the mind of Christ, we can become wise.  We can be as God intended, wise children of the Almighty God.  We need His wisdom to choose that which is perfect.  Let us be ever desirous of the working of God in our lives.  He converted us, now let us allow Him to make us wise.

Statutes is a word that speaks of a solid foundation.  In our country, there are amendments and rules, laws and ordinances.  But when we say that something is a statute, we know that it is a firm and legislated law of the land.  The firm foundation of God’s law is what we need to undergird our lives.  Every decision we consider, every plan we devise, every conversation or relationship we make, should all be based upon God’s Word.  Did you notice the results of the statutes of the Lord in our lives, is that our hearts will rejoice.  When we fall for the devil’s tricks or our own selfish desires, our heart is usually broken or saddened.  But God’s Word and God’s Way will bring rejoicing within.  We all want to have true joy in our hearts and in our families as well.  We must make the Lord’s statutes the basis for our family life, then our home can be a place of joy.  The hearts of the family will rejoice together as we base everything in that home upon the principles of God.  Often as children, we rebelled against the "commandments" given to us, whether they were from our parents or teachers.  Sometimes as Christians, we can find ourselves still as children, rebelling against the commandments of God.  Even the Apostle Paul had to warn the Corinthians to be not children in understanding.(I Corinthians 14:20)  We need to be obedient ones, because only God’s commandments are pure, only they can bring us the spiritual knowledge we need to see clearly in our lives.  Children sing: "If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy; Let Jesus come into your heart."  We could add: "If you want joy, real joy, wonderful joy; obey the Lord Jesus today."  Psalm 119:130 declares, The entrance of thy words giveth light, He giveth understanding unto the simple.  When the Apostle Paul was blinded on the road to Damascus, no light could penetrate through his eyes to his mind.  When understanding came, the darkness fell away, as scales from his eyes.  Not only could the light enter his eyes, but the spiritual enlightenment entered into his mind and heart.  Think of the joy he had in seeing again.  Multiply that joy as we think of the enlightening of our spiritual eyes that only God can give through His Word.  He opens the eyes of our understanding.  It is a miracle of spiritual healing to our souls each day!  It helps us to praise Him and live for Him.  Ephesians 1:18-19 says, The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe...

So many things of the world are contaminated.  Fear in the world’s eyes is usually the result of something evil or sinister.  But the fear of the Lord, or holding God in reverence and respect, is clean.  What a beautiful picture.  Our love and respect for the Lord produces something that sparkles and shines, that has a sweet, clear smell.  All other fear smells of rottenness.  Several years ago, we were given the opportunity to live in an old house.  It had been shut up for years.  Its walls were riddled with mold and grime.  Its ceilings were decaying, everything was a mess and the smell was horrible.  We came in and opened all the doors and windows, hauled out all the debris, scrubbed the walls, repaired and rebuilt.  We really cleaned it up.  Only then could we use the house as it was intended.  When God comes into our lives, He must do the same.  He opens our heart’s doors and windows to His love, takes away the debris of old sin and sets about to repair and rebuild our life’s house, to clean us up.  Even after we moved into that house, I still had to clean it daily or soon it would have become a mess again.  When we have the proper fear of the Lord, we will recognize sin in our lives and allow God to do His daily house-cleaning in us.  Take a few moments this morning and examine your heart and motives.  Let God’s sparkling, shining mercy clean you today.  Then, and only then, can God use you as He has designed.  That old house we used to live in was very interesting.  After we cleaned it up and did some repairs, we moved right in.  It was a very pleasant house, but one thing always bothered us.  It still had an unusual smell.  True, it was not the overwhelming bad odor we had encountered before the restoration, but there was still an odor.  The first week we lived there, I found a place deep in the pantry where potatoes had rotted through to the floor boards.  A good dose of bleach solved that and part of the smell was gone.  Weeks later, we found a leak under the bathroom plumbing that caused a smell under the house.  That, too, was fixed, but a faint odor remained.  We lived in the house for several months, when we finally discovered the last odor of the house’s previous life.  It was under the carpeting.  We had cleaned the old carpet, but the decay was in the padding.  Often we try to bring old ways into our new life as a Christian.  Many of them can not just have a surface cleaning.  Some will have to be hauled out of our spiritual house and replaced with God’s new ways for our life.  Our respect for Him should cause our lives to be clean and pure, with no lingering odor of past sins.  His judgments are true and righteous altogether.  Often a Christian will cry out to the Lord, "It’s just not fair," in response to God’s dealings with them.  But our verse teaches a very deep lesson.  God’s judgments are true and always right altogether.  At all times, in all situations, God’s dealings with us are correct.  We need to take that important step of trust in our God to fully believe His judgments.  If He judges our sins, it is because of His great love for us.  Even if we suffer loss, it is to secure eternal reward.  Only if we resist and fight against His righteous judgments will we fail to see the success we could have had.  We need to submit ourselves into the hand of Him who judges aright.  Deuteronomy 32:4 should be our solemn agreement with our Judge: He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.  Trust His judgments, even when you would start to question, trust Him.  Experience the clean feeling of absolute trust and Biblical fear.  Truly respect Him as God in your life today!

A friend recently asked me why I thought so many people get saved but never seem to really grow, and some even "drop out" of church and the Christian life.  One of the most important answers to that dilemma is found in a reflection on our verse for today.  God’s design is for us to desire the things of God: His law, testimonies, statutes, commandments, and His ways, above all else.  They should be desired more than gold and be sweeter to our taste than honey.  People who get such a craving for the things of God are always growing and desiring more of God’s sweetness in their lives.  Many of those that fail to grow are those that desired other things more than the things of God.  The parable of the seed and the sower in Luke 8, verse 14, includes further insight: and that which fell among the thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.  Mark 4 says that it was the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in...  The person who never has God’s best perfected in him, is often the one who has lusts for other things, his desire is not toward the things of God.  God’s judgments are true and righteous altogether (Psalm 19:9), His law is perfect, His testimony sure, His statutes right, His commandments enlightening.  Each area of God’s dealing with us, His Word and His entire Being are so wonderful that we should desire them, and Him, more than anything else.  Notice when we read of the things that most people desire in riches and pleasure, that the quality of those things is summed up in one word: "deceitfulness."  What a contrast to the pure things of the Lord.  God made His way to be desirable.  No matter what deceptions the devil tries to substitute, they will never have the pure infinite quality of the things of the Lord.  Imitations can never be the real thing.  Let us pray today that we will truly desire the things of God more than much fine gold, that its taste will be sweet to us.  A gold miner will spend a life time digging for gold, hoping to strike it rich.  Every day we can enter into the gold mine of God’s Word and freely take of His precious riches.  We can strike it rich each and every day!  A bear will tear down a tree, endure multiple bee stings, all for the pleasure of a pawful of honey.  How often do we falter because of a little sting of ridicule or human conflict.  God’s honey is completely nourishing and sweet to the taste.  Let us endure.  Lord, help me this day to so desire the things of God that worldly temptations will lose their luster and be shown in their deceitfulness to be the imitation that they are, like fake fool’s gold to the eye of the experienced miner.  Help me to so love You and desire after You, that the warmth and riches of Your love may enrich my life today.  Don’t let me shrivel and die amongst the thorns.  Help me to be a strong, growing Christian for You.

As a parent, I always felt the keen responsibility of warning my children of the dangers that could face them in their lives.  God feels the same way about us.  He has given to us His Word as a constant warning for every area of life.  If we read it and heed it, we will be able to notice the pitfalls and traps before we become entangled.  We will be able to detect the subtle lies of the devil and we will see God’s warnings flash when temptation is in our way.  But we must make God’s Word a part of our lives in order to have all the benefits of His Early Warning System.  The United States has a very advanced system of warning devices placed around our borders.  They are fully equipped with radar and computers.  Many men are trained to respond to any warning that might be given.  All their airplanes and vessels are kept in constant working order to be ready at a moment’s notice to respond and defend our country against attack.  All this defense system is dependent on the proper use of the warning devises.  The danger must be sensed and the alarm given in order for there to be a protective response.  God’s warning system is always in operation.  He not only gives us the warnings in His Word, but the Holy Spirit constantly bears witness within.  We must not be systems' operators asleep on duty!  We must make certain that all our equipment is tuned into the Master’s perfect system.  We must use the right energy source in the Word of God and fill up our computer banks with all the information available through His Word.  Then we must be ever alert through prayer and fellowship with the Lord so that we can hear and heed His commands.  Our verse says, Moreover by them is thy servant warned.  The phrase "by them" refers directly to the things of God discussed in verses 7-9.  By the law of the Lord, by His testimonies, by His statutes, by His commandments, by a proper fear of God, and by His judgments, we are warned.  I would have done anything to protect my children from danger.  We should be willing to do what God requires to protect ourselves and our families from spiritual danger.  To take full advantage of God’s warning system, we must be diligent in our duty as students of His Word, faithfully serving Him each day.  No matter what allurements the world offers, God promises us that when we keep His Word, He will give us great rewards.  All the ribbons, trophies and prizes of the world will decay and pass away, but God’s rewards will be enjoyed for all eternity.  There is no comparison between the two.  Even though some rewards will not be given until we reach Heaven, God’s promises are sure, they will be given!  Be patient and watchful, friend, your Heavenly Father watches over you...He knows His own.  Never give up!

"I’ll read it, I’ll heed it, I love it every part.

I’ll hear it, revere it, and hide it in my heart.

It’s pages, thru ages, have brought salvation free.

Receive it, believe it, the B-I-B-L-E !"