With Our Eyes on Jesus

Meditations on Christ in the Psalms

January 12, 2023

With Our Eyes on Jesus

Praise the Lord!

How joyful are those who fear the Lord

    and delight in obeying his commands.

Psalm 112:1

Psalm 112 is very similar to Psalm 111. They both contain twenty-two lines, and each line begins with one of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in succession. Both psalms are focused on the Godly virtue of wisdom in the lives of God’s children. Psalm 111 teaches us the “Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom” (Psalm 111:10a). In my discussion of Psalm 111, I noted that reverence may be a more helpful word here than fear. As we now look at Psalm 112, we need to expand our understanding of reverence. I believe reverent obedience to God’s will expresses the meaning and intent of the phrase, “fear of the Lord.”

In the New Testament Epistles, the words obey, and obedience are used over seventy-five times. The Book of James teaches that faith without good deeds is dead, and the teaching is centered on being doers of God’s Word (reverent obedience) and not hearers only (James 1&2). Jesus models for us reverent obedience to God’s will as He fulfilled all the virtues in Psalm 112.  The attributes modeled by Jesus seem quite daunting: generous, compassionate, and righteous, confidently trusting the Lord to care for us, confident and fearless, facing our foes triumphantly, sharing freely and giving generously to those in need.

My Takeaway: When we are tempted to compromise our reverent obedience to God’s will, we can remember that as His followers, we are “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:2 NASB). With our eyes on Jesus, and trusting in His grace, we “can do everything through Christ, who gives (us) strength” (Philippians 4:13).

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2023 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.