Abounding Life through Christ’s Imputed Righteousness
10/26 Reading Portions: 2 Kings 7; 1 Timothy 4; Daniel 11; Psalm 119:25-48
Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
10/26 Reading Portions: 2 Kings 7; 1 Timothy 4; Daniel 11; Psalm 119:25-48
Psalm 119:40
Behold, I long for Your precepts; in Your righteousness give me life!
ALIVE
By God’s grace we are saved. Through faith in Christ, He has given you and me a new heart and new spirit (Ezek 36:26); whereas by this new spirit, He has caused us to walk in His statutes and obey His commands (Ezek 36:27). Yes, by supernatural regeneration, we have eternal life. It is ours, and the Lord Jesus Christ has given it to us by His life and death. Yet, by God’s grace, as we read His Word and commune with Him daily in prayer, we recognize the need that still remains. The weakness of our mortal flesh must be overcome. Thus, we desire God’s precepts because we are new creations in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). We long to know Christ’s truth, we want to obey His Word, and we seek to have it fulfilled in our lives. Our spirits are indeed willing, but our flesh is weak (Matt 26:41). Therefore, it is our appropriate request, like the psalmist’s, to have more life— abundant, revived life. The root word, translated “life” (ESV), and “quicken” (KJV), is the Hebrew חיה (cha-YAH), which means “to live.” As it is conjugated in the original language, it could be translated give me life! or “revive me!” or “make me alive!” Do you want a personal revival in your life? Of course you do. And you can have it each morning you arise. Is it simply there for the asking? Yes… and no. The psalmist doesn’t merely ask for personal revival, he requests it through God’s righteousness, that is, through the righteousness of the Messiah to come. When we bring our requests to the cross, as it were, the Holy Spirit awakens our hearts and minds to the eternal perspectives of Christ’s incarnation, sacrifice, and resurrection. This empowers us to overcome the weakness of our flesh, to submit to Christ through the Holy Spirit, and to be made alive, much more alive, in, to, and by the precepts of God in Christ. This is exactly what Jesus promised to give us when He said,
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
Hallelujah! What a life-giving Savior!
Turn Thou away my fear’d reproach;
For good Thy judgments be.
Lo, for Thy precepts I have long’d;
In Thy truth quicken me.
Scottish Psalter, 1650