9 How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
11 I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
12 Praise be to you, Lord;
teach me your decrees.
13 With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.
14 I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
15 I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.
16 I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.
Beth, the second letter and page in the Alphabet Book, further addresses the question of how can one remain faithful to the Lord? How can one remained blessed? How can one remain blameless? In our vernacular today, how can one remain saved? How can a young person stay on the path of purity (given that life is long and there will be many thoughts, actions, people, and problems trying to pull us away from the blessings of purity). The psalmist answers this again with eight lines all beginning with the same letter, Beth.
This is neat. It is like a child or a young adult going to the fair. It is too bad that we don’t have a fall fair in town this year due to Covid-19 pandemic. I remember last year at the fair there was this one ride, the Himalaya that Heather wanted to go on again and again and again. I am glad she ran into a friend who would go with her because when you are my age those rides are quite as fun to go on quite as many times as they are when you are Heather’s age. Though it was really fun to see how much enjoyment she was getting from ride.
Here, in our Alphabet Psalm, we have a young person experiencing the ride of uprightness, the ride of holiness, the ride of salvation, the ride of blessing, blamelessness, and purity. The concerned parent or the young person themselves ask, how can we stay on this ride of purity? The rest of this stanza answers this question with each of the eight lines beginning with Beth, the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
How can young people remain pure and blessed throughout their lives?
We can do this by living according to God’s Word, not neglecting His Word, reciting His Word, keeping His Word hidden in our hearts and rejoicing in it.[4] How can we remain pure, blameless and blessed in our life? We can do this by reading our Bible and praying continually.
When we lived in Saskatchewan, there was a column in the Nipawin Journal entitled ‘Questions of Faith’ to which various pastors were asked to contribute regularly. One question to which I was asked to respond was, ‘As a Christian why should I read my Bible?’ I opened my response this way:
‘My five year-old asks us every night if we can read the Bible to her since at Sunday school, not too long ago, the teacher sang with the children, “read your Bible, pray every day and you’ll grow, grow, grow …” Sarah-Grace took this truth to heart and has been faithful in reminding us to read her Bible.’[5]
Sarah-Grace, even as young as 5, and her sisters too, have been very faithful in reading their Bibles every day and encouraging us to do the same for that really is key to purity, blamelessness and blessing.
The psalmist tells us on page 2 of this Psalm 119 Alphabet Book, we can be pure, blessed and blameless as we memorize God’s Word and keep God’s Word in our hearts so we can draw on it and experience the Lord’s blessing, peace and strength. We can experience purity, blessing, and blamelessness by letting the Lord teach us His ways.
We can experience purity, blessing, and blamelessness, as our scripture today says, by seeking God with all of our hearts. This, I think, is so important. One of the Bible verses that I had memorized as a child is Matthew 6:33 ‘seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you’. I have drawn on that many times in my life as many things have threatened my purity and my experience of the Lord’s blessing in my life. Psalm 1:2 and Joshua 1:8 encourage us to meditate on the Word of the Lord day and night. As we do this, as we keep His Word in our heart and seek Him with all our heart, He promises we will find Him and we will experience His purity, blessing, and blamelessness for now and forever.
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