You have the freedom to run after the Word of God by practicing acts of lovingkindness
Psalm 119:17 Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.
In the previous verses we had a desire to learn God's laws, His statutes, His precepts, etc. This caused us to learn righteous judgment. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged:
Now we learn that for God to deal bountifully with us we must deal bountifully with others. and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
If you want the word measured to you bountifully so that you may live, then you must also share the word with others bountifully.
18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.
There is a secret to having your eyes opened and that is to obey the word. When I first learned about the baptism I was concerned because I had been "baptized" as a child, but then they showed me that after you make a choice for the Lord you must be baptized. My thought was this is foolish, get into a pool of water and get dunked, but if the Lord says to do it, then I'll do it. Well, it wasn't foolish. I had this vision of my old man being like a concrete cast about me that fell off as soon as I hit that pool and my spirit sprung up within me as I came out. When I returned to campus there were about ten kids in my dorm room and they asked why my head was wet. I told them I had just been baptized and it was clear to me that from that point there was a divide as though I was standing on one side of the Red Sea and they were on the other. That night my grandmother died and I had the inner conviction that she had been praying to the Lord that I would be saved before she would die. That was stunning to me, I thought I had been saved for years and yet being obedient to the word of God that is the proof that you are saved.
19 I am a stranger in the earth: hide not thy commandments from me.
Is this your testimony? You see so many Christians and they don't appear to be strangers, they appear to be the host. However, if you read Hebrews 11, all the hero's of the faith, that is their testimony. Moses was in the house of Pharaoh and yet he chose to suffer with the "deplorable" children of Israel. That stance gives you a basis to pray for God to open His word to you. Lord, I am more interested in what you have to say than what all these so called world leaders have to say, so please, speak to me.
20 My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times.
This has been a controlling vision for my whole life. Even before I was saved I longed to have wisdom and knowledge. I would go into a library and just feel somewhere in these stacks is hidden that wisdom and knowledge I am seeking. Then I discovered Colossians 2:3 that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ who is the incarnated word of God.
21 Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, which do err from thy commandments.
I had experiences of this in college. We were preaching the gospel and turning the entire campus upside down. They tried to slander us in various ways and yet got rebuked every time, and every time it was so clear, they had erred from God's commandments. Some were caught in lies, some were caught in sin, some were aligned with the false prophets.
22 Remove from me reproach and contempt; for I have kept thy testimonies.
So what are some of these testimonies that you have kept? Have you stopped murmuring, complaining, backbiting, and slandering others? Once you understand that you will be judged by your own judgement and that "vengeance is God's, He will repay" you can remove all the reproach and contempt from your own speech. Once you do that you can better understand those that reproach you, develop some empathy, see your own mistakes and realize that you have control over correcting yourself, not others.
23 Princes also did sit and speak against me: but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes.
The Mayor of NY mandated the vaccine for all teachers. I meditated on the Lord's statutes and decided to resign instead. When you are filled with the word, with His wisdom, His precepts, His instructions, then you aren't intimidated by some "expert" like Fauci telling you what to do. I realized he was lying and so trusted what I knew to be true. We sold our house and we moved. Three months later interest rates began to rise. Six months later the housing market had crashed and we would have lost 120k on the sale price had we waited. Do you think the talking heads on TV warned you of what was coming? Of course not. Jesus is lord of lords and king of kings. I'll listen to him over all these clowns. Then I sold out my IRA and moved all the money to silver. Within less than two weeks I was up 10%.
24 Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.
A counselor advises you. Listening to testimonies of the saints, even my own testimonies, and the testimonies of those in the Bible are all counselors who advise you. They don't have to be glorious victorious testimonies, they can be testimonies of failure. What really prompted me more than anything were my previous experiences of being lied to and falling for those lies. I had made that mistake twice, wasn't about to do it again.
This brings us back to verse 17. My testimony is that God is dealing bountifully with me so that I can live and keep your word.
I met a brother through this blog who has an orphanage in Kenya. I realized this was an opportunity for me to deal bountifully with others. However, I am retired now, on a fixed income, and had nothing left to give. Yet they needed $6,000 more. So I told him to pray, you have 78 kids there, get everyone together and pray. That week I discover money had been deposited to my account that was completely unexpected and so I was able to send them money. God has dealt bountifully with me with the sale of the house, with moving my IRA to silver, and this is not for me, it is so I can be bountiful to others. What a great way to preach the gospel to these kids, pray to God and he will answer your prayer, they pray and He answers.
I heard a message about praying for your gift. So I thought, OK what gift would I like to pray for. The more I thought the more I thought, not that gift, not that gift, not that gift. Finally, I realized the gift I wanted more than any other is the one James talks about in chapter 5 -- the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. My prayer is that God will hear and answer me when I pray.