Psalm 119 is called the Alphabet of Divine Love, the Paradise of all Doctrines, the Storehouse of the Holy Spirit and the School of Truth.
The Theme of Psalm 119
is
The Word of God
137. Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgments.
138. Your testimonies which You have commanded, are righteous and very
faithful.
139. My zeal has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten Your
Words.
140. Your Word is very pure; therefore Your servant loves it.
141. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget Your precepts.
142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth.
143. Trouble and anguish have overtaken me, yet Your commandments are my
delight.
144. The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting; give me
understanding and I shall live.
137-144. This passage deals with the perfect righteousness of Jehovah and His Word. It expresses the struggles of a holy soul in reference to that righteousness. The initial letter that begins every verse sounds like the Hebrew word for righteousness. Our keynote is righteousness.
137. Righteous are You, O LORD. The psalmist rarely used Jehovah's name in this vast composition. The psalm shows that he was deeply religious and thoroughly familiar with the things of God. People like this never use God's holy name carelessly, and they do not use it frequently in comparison with the use of it by the thoughtless and the ungodly. In this case, familiarity breeds reference; he uses the sacred name in worship. David praises God by ascribing perfect righteousness to Him. God is always right, He is always actively right, and He is righteous. This quality is tied to our idea of God. We cannot imagine an unrighteous God.
And upright are Your judgments. David extols God's Word, or recorded judgments, as being right, even as their Author is righteous. What comes from the righteous God is righteous itself. Jehovah both says and does what is right, and that alone. This is a great support to the soul in times of trouble. When we are sorely afflicted and cannot see the reason for the affliction, we may fall back on this sure and certain fact; God is righteous and His dealings with us are righteous. It should be our glory to sing this great confession when all things around us appear to suggest the contrary. This is the richest adoration, this which rises from the lips of faith when carnal reason complains about undue severity.
138. Your testimonies, which You have commanded, are righteous and very faithful. All that God has testified in His Word is right and true. It is righteous and it may be relied on for the present; it is faithful, and it may be trusted for the future. In every portion of the inspired testimonies, there is divine authority. It is issued and published by God's command, and it bears the royal style that carries omnipotence. Not only the precepts but also the promises and teachings of Scripture are commanded by the Lord. It is not our choice whether we will accept them; they are issued by royal command and are not to be questioned. Their characteristic is that they are like the Lord who has proclaimed them; they are the essence of justice and the soul of truth. God's Word is righteous and cannot be impeached; it is faithful and cannot be questioned; it is true from the beginning and will be true to the end.
139. In the last two verses David spoke about God and His Law. Here, he speaks of himself. My zeal has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten Your words. This was caused because the psalmist had a clear sense of the admirable character of God's Word. His zeal was a fire burning in his soul. Man's forgetfulness of God acted as a fierce blast to build the fire to a more fervent flame, and it blazed until it was ready to consume him. David could not bear that people should forget God's Word. The ungodly were David's enemies because they hated him for his godliness and because he abhorred them for their ungodliness. They had gone so far in iniquity that they not only violated and neglected God's commands but also appeared to have forgotten them. This put David into a great heat; he burned with indignation. How dare they trample sacred things! How could they utterly ignore God's commands? He was astonished and filled with holy anger.
My zeal has consumed me. Zeal is a high degree of love, and when the object of that love is ill treated, it vents itself in a mixture of grief and indignation sufficient to wear out and consume the heart. This is the case where people rightly conceive of the dishonor that is continually done to God by creatures whom He has redeemed. But never could the verse be spoken with such fullness of truth and propriety as by the Son of God. Jesus had a far greater sense of His Father's glory and of human sin than any other person. When His zeal had exerted itself in purging the temple, John tells us, "Then his disciples tell us it was written, 'Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up' (John 2:17). The place where this is written is Psalm 69:9. This passage parallels it. (George Horne, 1730-1792)
140. Your Word is very pure. It is truth distilled, holiness in its quintessence. In the Word of God there is no error or sin. It is pure in its sense, pure in its language, pure in its spirit, and pure in its influence, and all this to the highest degree: very pure.
Therefore Your servant loves it. This is proof that David was pure in heart. Only those who are pure love God's Word because of its purity. His heart was knit to the Word because of its holiness and truth. He admired it, delighted in it, sought to practice it, and longed to come under its purifying power.
Your Word is very pure. In the original it is "tried, refined, and purified like gold in the furnace." Absolutely perfect, without the dross of worthlessness and deception that runs through human writings. The more we test the promises, the surer we will find them. Boerhaave informs us that pure gold is so fixed that an ounce of it set in the eye of a glass furnace for two months will not lose a single grain. (George Horne, 1730-1792)
141. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget Your precepts. The forgetfulness that he condemned in others (v.139) could not be charged to him. His enemies made him of no account, considered him without power or ability, and looked down on him. He appears to accept the situation and humbly takes the lowest room, but he carries God's Word with Him. How many have been driven to reply to the contempt of their enemies? To make themselves conspicuous, they have either replied or acted in a manner they could not justify. The beauty of the psalmist's holiness was that it was calm and balanced. David was not carried away by flattery, so he was not overcome with shame. If small, he would more jealously attend to the smaller duties. If despised, he would more earnestly keep the despised commandment of God.
Yet I do not forget Your precepts. God observes what we do in trouble; "If we had forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart" (Psalm 44:20,21). If we slacken our service to God, the judge of hearts knows all. God knows whether we want depraved and corrupted doctrine, worship and ordinances, or if we want to faithfully adhere to Him, His Word, and His worship, whatever the cost.
In our poor and despicable condition, we see more cause to love the Word than we did before, because we have experienced support and comfort from it. "We also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:4). "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:5). God has special comfort for His afflicted and despised people. He makes their consolation from Christ run parallel with, and keep pace with, their suffering for Christ. (Thomas Manton, 1620-1677)
142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. Having ascribed righteousness to God (v.137), he now declares that righteousness is unchanging and everlasting. This is the joy and glory of the saints; what God is, He always will be, and His procedure toward the sons of men is immutable. Having kept His promise and dealt out justice among His people, He will do so world without end. Both the righteousness and the unrighteousness of men come to an end, but the righteousness of God is without end.
And Your law is truth. As God is love, so His law is the truth. It is the essence of truth, truth applied to ethics, truth in action, and truth on the judgment seat. We hear great disputes about, "What is truth?" The holy Scriptures are the only answer to that question. They are not only true but truth itself. We may not say they contain the truth but that they are the truth, Your law is truth. There is nothing false about the law or the precepts of Scripture. Those who are obedient will find that they are walking consistent with fact, while those who act contrary are walking in a vain show.
143. Trouble and anguish have overtaken me. This affliction may have arisen from circumstances, or from the cruelty of enemies, or from internal conflicts. But it is certain that he was the subject of great distress, a distress that apprehended him and took him captive to its power. Grief, like fierce dogs, had taken hold on him; he felt their teeth. He had double trouble, trouble without and anguish within. The apostle Paul put it this way, "Outside were conflicts, inside were fears" (2 Corinthians 7:5).
Your commandments are my delights. David was a riddle; he was troubled, yet delighted, in anguish, yet in pleasure. The child of God can understand this enigma, for he well knows that while he is cast down because of what others see in him, he is all the more lifted by what he sees in the Word. He is delighted with the commandments, although he is troubled because he cannot perfectly obey them. He finds abundant light in the commandments, and by the influence of that light, he discovers and mourns his own darkness. Only the person acquainted with the struggles of the spiritual life will understand this expression. Let the reader herein find a scale to weigh himself. Does he find that when he is surrounded by sorrow he still delights in doing the Lord's will? Does he find more joy in being sanctified than he finds sorrow in being chastised? Then the spot of God's children is on him.
144. The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting. First he said that God's testimonies were righteous and then everlasting, and now he says, the righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting. David gives a larger and more detailed account of the Word of God the longer he is engaged in writing. The more we say in praise of Scripture, the more we may say and the more we can say. God's testimonies cannot be assailed. They are righteous from beginning to end. The ungodly have opposed divine justice, especially in the plan of salvation, and, yet, hey have always failed to establish any charge against the Most High. As long as the earth stands, as long as there is a single intelligent creature in the universe, it will be confessed that God's plans of mercy are in all respects marvelous proof of His love of justice. Just a He is gracious, Jehovah will be just.
Give me understanding, and I shall live. He prayed this continually, give me understanding, and I shall live. He evidently considers this gift essential to living. To live without understanding is not to live but to be dead while we live. Only as we apprehend the things of God can we enter life. The more the Lord teaches us to admire the eternal rightness of His Word, and the more He revives us to love such rightness, the happier and the better we will be. As we love life and seek many days, that we may see good, it behooves us to seek immortality "through the Word of God which lives and abides forever" (1 Peter 1:23). And it behooves us to seek good in the renewal of our entire nature, which begins with the enlightenment of the understanding and passes to the regeneration of the entire person. Here is our need of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, and the guide of all the revived ones. He will lead us into all truth.
The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting. Your moral law was not made for one people or for one particular time. It is as imperishable as Your nature and of endless obligation. It is that law by which all the children of Adam will be judged. Give me understanding to know and to practice it. And I shall live. I shall glorify You and live eternally, not for the merit of having done it, but because You fulfilled the work of the law in my heart, having saved me from condemnation by it. (Adam Clarke, 1760-1832)
Commentary is by Charles Spurgeon, taken from the Treasury of David.
137-144. This passage deals with the perfect righteousness of Jehovah and His Word. It expresses the struggles of a holy soul in reference to that righteousness. The initial letter that begins every verse sounds like the Hebrew word for righteousness. Our keynote is righteousness.
137. Righteous are You, O LORD. The psalmist rarely used Jehovah's name in this vast composition. The psalm shows that he was deeply religious and thoroughly familiar with the things of God. People like this never use God's holy name carelessly, and they do not use it frequently in comparison with the use of it by the thoughtless and the ungodly. In this case, familiarity breeds reference; he uses the sacred name in worship. David praises God by ascribing perfect righteousness to Him. God is always right, He is always actively right, and He is righteous. This quality is tied to our idea of God. We cannot imagine an unrighteous God.
And upright are Your judgments. David extols God's Word, or recorded judgments, as being right, even as their Author is righteous. What comes from the righteous God is righteous itself. Jehovah both says and does what is right, and that alone. This is a great support to the soul in times of trouble. When we are sorely afflicted and cannot see the reason for the affliction, we may fall back on this sure and certain fact; God is righteous and His dealings with us are righteous. It should be our glory to sing this great confession when all things around us appear to suggest the contrary. This is the richest adoration, this which rises from the lips of faith when carnal reason complains about undue severity.
138. Your testimonies, which You have commanded, are righteous and very faithful. All that God has testified in His Word is right and true. It is righteous and it may be relied on for the present; it is faithful, and it may be trusted for the future. In every portion of the inspired testimonies, there is divine authority. It is issued and published by God's command, and it bears the royal style that carries omnipotence. Not only the precepts but also the promises and teachings of Scripture are commanded by the Lord. It is not our choice whether we will accept them; they are issued by royal command and are not to be questioned. Their characteristic is that they are like the Lord who has proclaimed them; they are the essence of justice and the soul of truth. God's Word is righteous and cannot be impeached; it is faithful and cannot be questioned; it is true from the beginning and will be true to the end.
139. In the last two verses David spoke about God and His Law. Here, he speaks of himself. My zeal has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten Your words. This was caused because the psalmist had a clear sense of the admirable character of God's Word. His zeal was a fire burning in his soul. Man's forgetfulness of God acted as a fierce blast to build the fire to a more fervent flame, and it blazed until it was ready to consume him. David could not bear that people should forget God's Word. The ungodly were David's enemies because they hated him for his godliness and because he abhorred them for their ungodliness. They had gone so far in iniquity that they not only violated and neglected God's commands but also appeared to have forgotten them. This put David into a great heat; he burned with indignation. How dare they trample sacred things! How could they utterly ignore God's commands? He was astonished and filled with holy anger.
My zeal has consumed me. Zeal is a high degree of love, and when the object of that love is ill treated, it vents itself in a mixture of grief and indignation sufficient to wear out and consume the heart. This is the case where people rightly conceive of the dishonor that is continually done to God by creatures whom He has redeemed. But never could the verse be spoken with such fullness of truth and propriety as by the Son of God. Jesus had a far greater sense of His Father's glory and of human sin than any other person. When His zeal had exerted itself in purging the temple, John tells us, "Then his disciples tell us it was written, 'Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up' (John 2:17). The place where this is written is Psalm 69:9. This passage parallels it. (George Horne, 1730-1792)
140. Your Word is very pure. It is truth distilled, holiness in its quintessence. In the Word of God there is no error or sin. It is pure in its sense, pure in its language, pure in its spirit, and pure in its influence, and all this to the highest degree: very pure.
Therefore Your servant loves it. This is proof that David was pure in heart. Only those who are pure love God's Word because of its purity. His heart was knit to the Word because of its holiness and truth. He admired it, delighted in it, sought to practice it, and longed to come under its purifying power.
Your Word is very pure. In the original it is "tried, refined, and purified like gold in the furnace." Absolutely perfect, without the dross of worthlessness and deception that runs through human writings. The more we test the promises, the surer we will find them. Boerhaave informs us that pure gold is so fixed that an ounce of it set in the eye of a glass furnace for two months will not lose a single grain. (George Horne, 1730-1792)
141. I am small and despised, yet I do not forget Your precepts. The forgetfulness that he condemned in others (v.139) could not be charged to him. His enemies made him of no account, considered him without power or ability, and looked down on him. He appears to accept the situation and humbly takes the lowest room, but he carries God's Word with Him. How many have been driven to reply to the contempt of their enemies? To make themselves conspicuous, they have either replied or acted in a manner they could not justify. The beauty of the psalmist's holiness was that it was calm and balanced. David was not carried away by flattery, so he was not overcome with shame. If small, he would more jealously attend to the smaller duties. If despised, he would more earnestly keep the despised commandment of God.
Yet I do not forget Your precepts. God observes what we do in trouble; "If we had forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a foreign god, would not God search this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart" (Psalm 44:20,21). If we slacken our service to God, the judge of hearts knows all. God knows whether we want depraved and corrupted doctrine, worship and ordinances, or if we want to faithfully adhere to Him, His Word, and His worship, whatever the cost.
In our poor and despicable condition, we see more cause to love the Word than we did before, because we have experienced support and comfort from it. "We also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character; and character, hope" (Romans 5:4). "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:5). God has special comfort for His afflicted and despised people. He makes their consolation from Christ run parallel with, and keep pace with, their suffering for Christ. (Thomas Manton, 1620-1677)
142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. Having ascribed righteousness to God (v.137), he now declares that righteousness is unchanging and everlasting. This is the joy and glory of the saints; what God is, He always will be, and His procedure toward the sons of men is immutable. Having kept His promise and dealt out justice among His people, He will do so world without end. Both the righteousness and the unrighteousness of men come to an end, but the righteousness of God is without end.
And Your law is truth. As God is love, so His law is the truth. It is the essence of truth, truth applied to ethics, truth in action, and truth on the judgment seat. We hear great disputes about, "What is truth?" The holy Scriptures are the only answer to that question. They are not only true but truth itself. We may not say they contain the truth but that they are the truth, Your law is truth. There is nothing false about the law or the precepts of Scripture. Those who are obedient will find that they are walking consistent with fact, while those who act contrary are walking in a vain show.
143. Trouble and anguish have overtaken me. This affliction may have arisen from circumstances, or from the cruelty of enemies, or from internal conflicts. But it is certain that he was the subject of great distress, a distress that apprehended him and took him captive to its power. Grief, like fierce dogs, had taken hold on him; he felt their teeth. He had double trouble, trouble without and anguish within. The apostle Paul put it this way, "Outside were conflicts, inside were fears" (2 Corinthians 7:5).
Your commandments are my delights. David was a riddle; he was troubled, yet delighted, in anguish, yet in pleasure. The child of God can understand this enigma, for he well knows that while he is cast down because of what others see in him, he is all the more lifted by what he sees in the Word. He is delighted with the commandments, although he is troubled because he cannot perfectly obey them. He finds abundant light in the commandments, and by the influence of that light, he discovers and mourns his own darkness. Only the person acquainted with the struggles of the spiritual life will understand this expression. Let the reader herein find a scale to weigh himself. Does he find that when he is surrounded by sorrow he still delights in doing the Lord's will? Does he find more joy in being sanctified than he finds sorrow in being chastised? Then the spot of God's children is on him.
144. The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting. First he said that God's testimonies were righteous and then everlasting, and now he says, the righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting. David gives a larger and more detailed account of the Word of God the longer he is engaged in writing. The more we say in praise of Scripture, the more we may say and the more we can say. God's testimonies cannot be assailed. They are righteous from beginning to end. The ungodly have opposed divine justice, especially in the plan of salvation, and, yet, hey have always failed to establish any charge against the Most High. As long as the earth stands, as long as there is a single intelligent creature in the universe, it will be confessed that God's plans of mercy are in all respects marvelous proof of His love of justice. Just a He is gracious, Jehovah will be just.
Give me understanding, and I shall live. He prayed this continually, give me understanding, and I shall live. He evidently considers this gift essential to living. To live without understanding is not to live but to be dead while we live. Only as we apprehend the things of God can we enter life. The more the Lord teaches us to admire the eternal rightness of His Word, and the more He revives us to love such rightness, the happier and the better we will be. As we love life and seek many days, that we may see good, it behooves us to seek immortality "through the Word of God which lives and abides forever" (1 Peter 1:23). And it behooves us to seek good in the renewal of our entire nature, which begins with the enlightenment of the understanding and passes to the regeneration of the entire person. Here is our need of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, and the guide of all the revived ones. He will lead us into all truth.
The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting. Your moral law was not made for one people or for one particular time. It is as imperishable as Your nature and of endless obligation. It is that law by which all the children of Adam will be judged. Give me understanding to know and to practice it. And I shall live. I shall glorify You and live eternally, not for the merit of having done it, but because You fulfilled the work of the law in my heart, having saved me from condemnation by it. (Adam Clarke, 1760-1832)
Commentary is by Charles Spurgeon, taken from the Treasury of David.
143. Your commandments are my delights. David was a riddle; he was troubled, yet delighted, in anguish, yet in pleasure. The child of God can understand this enigma, for he well knows that while he is cast down because of what others see in him, he is all the more lifted by what he sees in the Word. He is delighted with the commandments, although he is troubled because he cannot perfectly obey them. He finds abundant light in the commandments, and by the influence of that light, he discovers and mourns his own darkness. Only the person acquainted with the struggles of the spiritual life will understand this expression. Let the reader herein find a scale to weigh himself. Does he find that when he is surrounded by sorrow he still delights in doing the Lord's will? Does he find more joy in being sanctified than he finds sorrow in being chastised? Then the spot of God's children is on him.
My thoughts on verse 143...
143. Trouble and anguish have overtaken me, yet Your commandments are my
delight. Whatever we are experiencing in life, anxiety, fear, frustration, anger, heartache, grief, sleeplessness, troubled sleep, physical pain, emotional pain, concern about another, we find that when we turn to the Word of God and prayer, His Spirit gives us hope and renews our spirit within us. When troubles beset us, we tend to see things from a dim, or even dark perspective. We sometimes tend to think of the worse outcome before we get to God's perspective on it.
What does the Bible say about these kinds of troubles? What is the purpose of them? Why do they come to us?
If we are God's child and we are back sliding, God will discipline us as a parent disciplines their child, for our own good, that we may share in His holiness. (Heb.12:10)
The testing of our faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work that you may become mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)
In Galatians 4:13, Paul tells the church at Galatians that it was because of his "illness" that he first had the opportunity to preach the Gospel message to them.
I have learned to be content in any and every situation whether well fed or hungry...because I can do all things through Christ Jesus. (Php.4:12,13)
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ, our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. (2Cor 1:5,6)
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us as you help us by your prayers. (2Cor 1:8-11)
We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry (witness) will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beating, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, through bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as imposters; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (2Cor. 6:3-10)
We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces, perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us. (Romans 5:3-5)
You may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These has come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6,7)
Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though some strange thing were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed. ( 1 Peter 4:12,13)
Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Timothy 3:12)
I consider our present sufferings not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Cor. 4:7-11)
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor.4:16-18)
~Annie~
What does the Bible say about these kinds of troubles? What is the purpose of them? Why do they come to us?
If we are God's child and we are back sliding, God will discipline us as a parent disciplines their child, for our own good, that we may share in His holiness. (Heb.12:10)
The testing of our faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work that you may become mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)
In Galatians 4:13, Paul tells the church at Galatians that it was because of his "illness" that he first had the opportunity to preach the Gospel message to them.
I have learned to be content in any and every situation whether well fed or hungry...because I can do all things through Christ Jesus. (Php.4:12,13)
For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ, our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. (2Cor 1:5,6)
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us as you help us by your prayers. (2Cor 1:8-11)
We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry (witness) will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beating, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, through bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as imposters; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything. (2Cor. 6:3-10)
We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces, perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us. (Romans 5:3-5)
You may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These has come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6,7)
Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though some strange thing were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed. ( 1 Peter 4:12,13)
Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. (2 Timothy 3:12)
I consider our present sufferings not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18)
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. (2 Cor. 4:7-11)
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor.4:16-18)
~Annie~
Dear Annie, There are times that I get frustrated when things don't fall into place the way that I think they should. You summed it all up in: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor.4:16-18)" Thank you so much for these inspiring words. Debbie http://bible-passages.blogspot.com
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