PRECEPTS

Today’s Reading: Psalms 119:73-128

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).

One of the Hebrew language Bibles on the communion table in Christ Church in Jerusalem. The church is located 200 metres inside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate. More than any other Bible passage, Psalm 119 gives emphasis to the importance of God’s Word!

GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.

Key Verses: Psalms 119:73b, 104 and 105

Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments…Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

The word “precept” is repeated 20 times in Psalm 119! The New Oxford Dictionary gives a meaning of this word: “A general rule intended to regulate behaviour or thought.” This may fall short of the true meaning of the word. The word “principle” comes from the same Latin word as “precept.” When we say that a man or woman is “a person of PRINCIPLE,” we are getting the right idea. Our key verses ask God for “UNDERSTANDING” and then answers that prayer as to how to get “UNDERSTANDING!” We feed our hearts and minds in God’s precepts every day and a person of PRINCIPLE is growing. It’s like the gestation period of the elephant…two years. Our through-God’s-Word readings and blogs over these two years should produce a new person of “PRINCIPLE.” Amen?

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Lord God, may Your precepts flow into the very core of my being, bringing healthy spiritual growth. I pray that I will emerge from this two-year period of absorbing Your Word daily as a “PERSON OF PRINCIPLE.” In other words, Father God, I hope to resemble Jesus more and more. In His Name I ask for Your precepts to be the DNA of my life now and in the future. Amen!!!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

In my first years as one who sought to follow Jesus, I decided to read the biographies of people who were, in my judgment, good people. Millions of such biographies should be written. There are too few! I found a common denominator in adherence to basic principles by which they ordered their lives. One such person is Abraham Lincoln, a former President of the United States. In 1957 a devotional book made up of select Biblical passages was discovered. It was owned and used by Lincoln. It’s called, The Believer’s Daily Treasure. A subtitle is, Texts of Scripture Arranged for Every Day of the Year. Here is a paragraph from a book called, Abraham Lincoln – Lessons in Spiritual Leadership, by Elton Trueblood:

“Frequently, Lincoln employed a verse from the Bible to clinch a point. He had been importuned saying that he would not interfere with slaves or slavery in states where they were acceptable. ‘I have,’ he wrote to William Speer of Tennessee, ‘done this many many times, and it is in print, and open to all who will read. Those who will not read or heed what I’ve already said would not read or heed a repetition of it. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.'”

That Bible quote is found in Luke 16:31. In my reading of Lincoln’s words, I have found that they are generously sprinkled with Scriptures. Lincoln knew the precepts of God’s Word thoroughly. I believe that his daily reading of God’s Word helped immensely to produce this great man of PRINCIPLE!

Yours for two years of gestation in the womb of Holy Scripture and for the birth of men and women of PRINCIPLE,

David

P.S. Click here for a look at one of the Bibles of Abraham Lincoln. His Bible was brought from the Smithsonian for the inauguration ceremony of President Obama.

Inside Christ Church in Jerusalem, which is the oldest Protestant Church in the Middle East. It was completed in 1849 and soon after became known as the “Jewish Protestant Church.” On the communion table are two Hebrew language Bibles (one of which is pictured above).