“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer,” v 14.

In our last study we considered how ‘unknowable’ are our sinful hearts, verse 12. We also learned that we must ever seek the Lord to cleanse and deliver us from “from secret faults,” verse 12.

We come to the final verse of the psalm and our last study in this series.

Consider first of all:

1. We are to guard not only what we say but what we think.

The word ‘meditation’ means the ‘musings or ponderings’ of our hearts. Even now your heart is pondering what it is I am saying. Were I to give you a sea shell you would take it up in your hands and turn it over and examine it. Well, pondering is our heart and mind taking up a subject and examining it!

2. Our thoughts are open to God so we must avoid offending Him. Hebrews 4:12-13. “ . . . but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” See 1 Sam 16:7; 1 Chron 28:9; 2 Chron 6:30; Psalm 44:21; Jer 17:10.

Let us all know that we can keep no secrets from the Lord!

3. It should be our desire that all we do and say be acceptable to God.

The word ‘acceptable’ means ‘favourable, delightsome, pleasing’. It first appears in Gen 49:6 and is translated as “in their selfwill” when Jacob is speaking of two of his sons, Simeon and Levi. They did that which was evil but ‘pleasing to themselves’.

4. Let us complete our study by remembering just Who the Lord is.

“O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”

First of all note the word ‘my’! Is the Lord yours? Does He belong to you? The little word refers to that which we ‘possess’. Do you possess the Lord?  Consider John 1:12. “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God . . .  ”. Have you received the Lord Jesus?

Again, notice what the Lord is to those who do receive Him. “My strength, and my redeemer.” The word ‘strength’ means ‘rock’. Remember  Matt 16:15-18. The word ‘redeemer’ first appears in Gen 48:16 where we have Jacob speaking. The Lord was his ‘redeemer’ who redeemed him from ‘all evil’.  See Ps 71:3, 5. That is what the Lord Jesus does for all who trust Him.

That is where gazing upward at the heavens which the Lord has made will bring us!