A Prayer Pouring Out of Psalm 119
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I am presently preaching through the stanzas of Psalm 119 and
it has been a spiritually enriching exercise.
Today, I am struck by my need to pray through this Psalm as I preach
through it. One of the greatest things about
verse-by-verse preaching is its sanctifying effect on the preacher. What follows come from the handwritten prayer
in my journal as I worked through Psalm 119:17-24 (The Trials That Come our
Way). The prayer was motivated by the
cross-references that I followed as the sermon notes unfolded.
Psalm 119:167—O Lord, my desire is that I would keep your
testimonies. I want those that testify
of your grace in my life. My great need
of your grace is evident from the moment I get up in the morning until I lay
down at night. I am need of great grace
that flows from You into my life so that in some small measure it will flow
into the lives of those around me. Increasingly,
I am aware of that sniveling grace that would give me room for my own personal
sins but would hold others to a much higher level. Gracious God, I plead for your testimony of
grace to help me to be more long-suffering with others while I hold my own life
to a higher level of commitment the Cross calls for. I also need Your testimony of holiness to be present
in my life. Not a legalistic “holiness”
that is more mindful of outward practice at the expense of inner spiritual poverty
but a holiness that is so consumed with Your nature that my entire being;
intellect, conscience, thinking, decisions, and direction all give honor to
You. Let me love your testimonies more than
anything in life.
Psalm 119:127—Great God, help me to love your Word more
than the finest gold that is on our planet.
Please do not let me fall into the trap of loving money or the things that
money can buy. You have blessed me
beyond what I deserve. I have abundance,
I have possessions, I have things I can put my hands on, I have places I can go
because of means You have provided, and I have more than enough to meet my needs. Deliver me from the slippery places this
material world has bought into of thinking that our possessions are what define
our position in Your Kingdom. What fine
gold can afford me in this world will matter so very little in the world to
come. Therefore, whatever gold that
comes through my hands in this life, I pray that you help me to use it wisely to
advance Your Kingdom’s principles. I need
your grace ever so much that I do not abuse what You have blessed me with
monetarily. Please. . . I plead with You
to help me to remember that what fine gold will buy in this world will one day
be destroyed. Help me to love Your Word
more than fine gold! Help me to remember
that what Your Word has brought into my life is eternal and will never pass
away. May my life be given to the
eternal more than the material!
Psalm 119:97—Lord, help me to love to study Your Word. Don’t let me just study the Book to be an articulate
polished orator that weak-minded people would be impressed with. I pray your deliver me from a carnal study of
Your Word that is motivated by a need to hear
Psalm 119:174—Lord, I ask You, I plead with You that I
would experience more of Your salvation.
Let there be an assurance that would flood my soul. “I have longed for Your salvation!” Those are the words of Your Psalmist, in
fact, those are Your Words because this Book is inspired by You meaning that it
is literally God-breathed. Breathe into me
an eternal salvation that does not depend on my performance or my devotion to a
moral code or my adherence to a Western standard of expectation. I pray that this eternal salvation does not
depend on my being able to heal the sick, raise the dead, or open blind
eyes. I need salvation that is not
dependent on how my I speak in tongues or operate in the gifts of the
Spirit. The kind of salvation I long for
is the salvation that comes to me when my stumbling efforts at my calling
overtake me, or in my fumbling plans to build Your church, and the presence of
God when I find myself involved in frittering sins that pull the life out of my
worship, my desire, and my devotion. I
plead with You, Lord, for that kind of salvation!
Psalm 119:2, 11, 34—Great God, keep my heart. Let it be focused in Your direction at all
times. I am confessing to You the weakness
of my heart. I am more than aware of the
fact that my heart can be a treacherous place.
My heart can be a place that is a council chamber of wickedness and I am
warned throughout Your Book that it is deceitful and dishonest and cannot be
trusted in any fashion. The man who
believes he is immune from this fact has already become a fool. The prayer, the pleading that I have is for
You to help me to hide Your Word in my heart so that I will not sin against
You. Through study, meditation, memorization,
hearing it read, reading it aloud in private devotion, and even singing Your
Word, I pray You will deal with my heart for good. I plead with You that whatever my meager efforts
are at preaching that it will be Word-saturated. Your Word inoculates me against sin and
temptation, that is why I need it in my heart.
Your Word drags down my self-righteousness, my pride, my self-sufficiency,
and a host of other soul maladies that my flesh, the devil, and the world would
infect me with. I pray that Your Word
pushes the ungodly ambitions that can creep into my ministry and I pray You
deliver me from acidic lusts that would destroy my marriage and my family. I am praying for Your Word to be hidden in my
heart. I am sincerely praying that Your
Word will be observed by my whole heart, not a small part, or half, or even 99%
but that Your Word will completely fill my heart. I plead for understanding, revelation,
knowledge, and wisdom to come to my aid.
I need this, my family needs this, the church I pastor needs these
things. We are watching our nation on
the brink of social, moral and spiritual collapse. . . Let Your Word fill our
hearts! May all of these requests be granted
in the name of our Great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. . .
The content of this prayer is another reason that I am
arguing for expository preaching to fill our pulpits. The workman of the Word who digs into the
Word has this kind of prayer to come to him while he is in the process of sermon
preparation which in its own way is a unique act of worship.
Thanks for reading. . .
Philip Harrelson
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