56.y. Psalm 119:67

 

 

Psalm 119:67      Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word.

 

 

When we are far away from God, the first stage on the journey home is a crisis. I’ve never known a Christian living in the far country who returned to God without a severe crisis coming into his or her life. C. S. Lewis said it this way: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge paid tribute to the value of pain in his own Christian life. He said, “Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness.”

When we come home to God, we gain a different perspective on the painful things God used to bring us back to Himself. Think about our ultimate homecoming, the day we get to heaven. In Revelation 21:4, John said, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain.” John was not saying that God will wipe our memories so we don’t remember the terrible things that happened to us. Instead, when we get to heaven, we’ll gain a new perspective on the suffering we went through in this life. One day, we’ll see our suffering as the prelude to an even greater existence.

In the same way, when we come back into a right relationship with God, it’s not that we will look back at a divorce, an illness, or the death of a loved one and say, “Wow, what a happy experience!” But if God uses those difficult circumstances to bring us back to Himself, one day we’ll be able to look back on them, as Muggeridge said, with particular satisfaction.

I think that’s what David had in mind when he said, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word” (Psalm 119:67). David was never going to be happy about the crises God used to get his attention. Yet when he finally came back to God, he saw the value of those afflictions. God uses crises to bring us back into a right relationship with Himself. (Jeffress)

56.x. Psa 139:16  

 

 

 Psa 139:16  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!  If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

 Psalms 40:5   You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

 Isaiah 55:8-9    For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 Jeremiah 29:11    For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

 Psalms 3:5    I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.

 Psalms 16:8-11   I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.  Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.  For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.  You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

 Psalms 63:6-7      when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;  for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

 Isaiah 26:19     Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

 Daniel 12:2    And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

 1 Thessalonians 5:10     who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.

56.w. Psa 139:14  

 

 

 Psa 139:14  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

 Genesis 1:26-27     Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

 Psalms 92:4-5   For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.  How great are your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep!

 Psalms 104:24     O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

 Psalms 111:2   Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.

 Job 5:9   (God)  who does great things and unsearchable, marvelous things without number:

 Revelation 15:3  And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Al

56.v. Psa 139:13 

 

 

Psa 139:13  For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

 Job 10:9-12   Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust?  Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?  You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.  You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.

 Psalms 22:10     On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

 Psalms 71:6     Upon you I have leaned from before my birth; you are he who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.

 Job 31:15    Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?

 Isaiah 44:2     Thus says the LORD who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you

 Isaiah 46:3   “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb;

 Jeremiah 1:5    “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

56.u.   Psa 139:8  

 

 Psa 139:8  If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

 Ezekiel 28:12-17     Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.

 Amos 9:2-4    “If they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.  If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.  And if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.”

 Obadiah 1:4    Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the LORD.

 Job 26:6     Sheol is naked before God, and Abaddon has no covering.

 Job 34:21-22     “For his eyes are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps.  There is no gloom or deep darkness where evildoers may hide themselves.

 Proverbs 15:11     Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the LORD; how much more the hearts of the children of man!

 Jonah 2:2    saying, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

56.t. Psa 139:7  

 

 

Psa 139:7  Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?

 Jeremiah 23:23-24    “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away?  Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.

 Jonah 1:10     Then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

 Acts 5:9   But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

56.s. Psa 139:6  

 

Psa 139:6  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

 Proverbs 30:2-4    Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man.  I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.  Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you know!

 Psalms 40:5    You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

 Job 11:7-9    “Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?  It is higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know?  Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.

 Job 26:14     Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?”

 Romans 11:33    Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

56.r. Psalms 139:5

 

 

 Psalms 139:5    You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

 Deuteronomy 33:27   The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. 

 Job 23:8-9    “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there, and backward, but I do not perceive him;  on the left hand when he is working, I do not behold him; he turns to the right hand, but I do not see him.

 Revelation 1:17     When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last,

56.q. Psalms 139:4

 

 

Psalms 139:4   Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

 Psalms 19:14   Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

 Job 42:3    ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

 Job 42:6  therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

 Zephaniah 1:12    At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, ‘The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill.’

 Matthew 12:35-37    The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.  I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,  for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

 James 1:26    If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless.

 James 3:2&8-10   

2  For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

8  but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

9  With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

10  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

 Psalms 50:21   These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

 Jeremiah 29:23    I am the one who knows, and I am witness, declares the LORD.’”

 Hebrews 4:12-13    For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

56.p. Pslams 139:3

 

 

Pslams 139:3       You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

 Job 31:4     Does not he see my ways and number all my steps?

 Psalms 121:3&8   

3  He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

8  The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

 Proverbs 5:21  For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.

 Ecclesiastes 12:14     For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

 Isaiah 29:15   Ah, you who hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?”