Show me Your ways, O LORD
The Bible has many ultra important messages that are not easy to understand or practice without direct guidance from the Holy Spirit. For example;
Matt 5:43-48 (NIV) “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Here are two questions, first, how to love our enemies? Second, how to be perfect? We all make the big mistake by seeking answers from men. As Jesus said, “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are brothers…. Nor are you to be called ‘Teachers,’ for you have only one teacher, the Christ! Jesus explained how to learn from the only Teacher in John 14:26
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Now we know the Holy Spirit will teach us all things. Psalm 25 and 119 have showed us how to communicate with the Holy Spirit, by adding our question into these prayers.
Show me Your ways, O LORD; the way to love my enemies and become perfect. Teach me Your paths. teach me what I should do today. For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.
Manifest Myself to him
In this way we can learn how to do God’s will everyday by using psalm 25 as a template. But the real challenge is still how to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Now listen to Jesus’ word, John 14:21-23 (NKJV) “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
This passage made it clear, the love for Jesus and keep His word are required for Jesus to manifest himself to any believer, and the Father will love him, make Their home with him. To loves Jesus and keep His word means to obey the greatest commandment, Mark 12:29-31 (NIV) “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Whoever does not love God with all his heart, soul and mind does not keep His word, so he will not be able to see the Lord, nor hear his voice.
Paul gave us this command to follow; Phil 4:8-9 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. This is the way to practice Jesus’ word.
Paul’s command can also be seen as a practical instruction of carrying out psalm 1 verse 1 and 2; Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law does he meditate day and night. Many of us do not realize that refusing to “meditate day and night” means forsaking God’s blessing and disobeying the greatest commandment.
Eagerly desire the greater gift LOVE
Not many know how to love God with all their hearts and minds, it is a gift from the Spirit and we have to ask for. Because the gift of love may not come automatically, 1Cor 12:30-31 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way. This most excellent way is Love.
1Cor 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. …… And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Since we are commanded to “eagerly desire the greater gifts” love, we can take psalm 25 as a template and pray like this;
Show me Your ways, O LORD; the way of love and give me this gift of loving God with all my heart. Teach me Your paths of love, teach me what I should do today to love. For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.
It took me more than 20 years to understand this, I have to eagerly desire the greater gift of love, for we all have limited love for God. I hope we can all put more focus on prayers, especially pray in the Spirit, as time is running out quickly.
Now I can see many teachings from the Lord are nearly impossible to fulfill by ourselves, we have to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show us and teach us how to put them into practice. For example, imitating Christ, that was emphasized many times in the Bible;
(I Corinthians 4:16) Therefore, I am exhorting you to be imitators of me.
(I Corinthians 11:1) Be imitators of me, exactly as I also am of Christ.
(Ephesians 5:1) Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children;
(Philippians 3:17) Brethren, be imitators together of me, and bear in mind those who walk in this way, as you have us for an example.
Because it’s very rare to find people who is an imitator of God, we should always ask the Lord to show us and teach us. Take psalm 25 verse 4 again;
Show me Your ways, O LORD; the way to imitate God. Teach me Your paths. teach me what I should do today in order to imitate You. For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.
Get familiar with the Word
Jesus’ voice is not heard by our ears, but by heart and mind, in the form of thought, usually during meditation. I receive it often as a reminder of a particular scripture or something related to it. On the other hand, poor knowledge of scriptures will make listening difficult.
Many believers are trying to love God and the world at the same time, their minds are busy thinking about earthly things. They can’t see what Paul wrote, Phil 3:18-19 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. We have to take this warning seriously and pray psalm 25 more often;
Show me Your ways, O LORD; the way to set my mind on heavenly things. Teach me Your paths. teach me today what I should do to focus on spiritual things. For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.
Everyone can slip into this sin from time to time, without our knowledge. But if we keep a habit of repeatedly praying through all the psalms and cycle through all the scriptures, the Holy Spirit can speak to our soul more frequently, for example by psalm 32:5,6 I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You In a time when You may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters They shall not come near him.
Fear God
Failing of confessing sin is quite common. I didn’t know I have no fear of God until several years of praying after all the psalms. Now I can see something similar to psalm 66 and 86 need to be repeated and prayed all the time;
Psalm 66:16-20 (NIV) Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!
Due to only few have the fear of God, we have to remind ourselves of psalm 90:11-12 (NKJV) Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom. And psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; The body of Christ desperately need the Lord to teach us how to number our days, so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Many churches’ prayer meeting have around 15% attendance because most churchgoers know their prayers are not answered. They are either ignorant or despised these word of God. Therefor, repent and pray through all the psalms, specially psalm 86 verse 3 and 11 (NKJV);
Be merciful to me, O Lord, For I cry to You all day long.
Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name.
Verse 11 is telling us knowing God’s way is not enough, we have to make up our mind to walk in His truth, maybe that’s why it took me so long to see I have no fear of God. Afterwards, the prayer to “Unite my heart to fear Your name” start to make sense to me. Although I was repeating it with lip only, it still allowed my heart to hear from the Holy Spirit over and over again. If someone can’t see any difference of praying the psalms, don’t just give up, we have to learn to trust God and His words.
Trust God and His Word
No man can teach another how to trust God, we can only learn it from God through prayer and scriptures. The word “trust” appeared in the book of psalms more than 60 times, let’s look at a few;
- psalm 2:11-12 Serve the LORD with fear, And rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, And you perish in the way, When His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him. Can we see the warning here, those who trust God will not perish, they will serve Him with fear and trembling.
- psalm 4:5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And put your trust in the LORD. Here “the sacrifices of righteousness” is (Rom12:1) “to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God“. This sacrifice is the cross of dying to the self so that we can put our trust in God, to do whatever his will or plan for us is. As Jesus said; If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Whoever ignore this will not be able to follow Him.
- psalm 9:10 And those who know Your name will put their trust in You; For You, LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You. Is this true that if someone does not trust God nor seek Him, he or she could be forsake by the Lord?
The above are just part of my limited understanding of only three verses on trusting God, surely those 60 over psalms included lot more truth than we can think of. Therefore, we need to pray all the psalms, all the time, so that the Holy Spirit can teach us to put our trust in God. And as it is written in First Thessalonians 5:16-18; Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Now let’s do the will of God by praying psalm 89;
I will sing of the mercies of the LORD forever; with my mouth I will make known Your faithfulness to all generations,
For I have said, “Your steadfast love shall be built up forever; You shall establish Your faithfulness in the heavens.”
“I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant,
‘Your seed will I establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations.’ ”
And the heavens shall praise Your wonders, O LORD, Your faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints,
For who in the heavens can be compared with the LORD? Who among the sons of the mighty is like the LORD?
God is greatly to be feared in the congregation of the saints and to be held in reverence by all who are round about Him.
O LORD God of hosts, who is mighty like you O LORD? And Your faithfulness is round about You.
You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves arise, You still them.
You have broken Rahab in pieces as one that is slain; You have scattered Your enemies with Your strong arm.
The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; You have founded the world and all its fullness.
The north and the south, You have created them; Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Your name.
Your arm is an arm of might; Your hand is strong, and Your right hand is exalted.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; mercy and truth shall go before Your face.
Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound; they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of Your countenance.
In Your name they shall rejoice all the day; and in Your righteousness they shall be exalted,
For You are the glory of their strength; and in Your favor our horn is exalted,
For the LORD is our shield; yea, our King is the Holy One of Israel.
Then You spoke in a vision to Your godly ones, and You said, “I have laid help upon a mighty one; I have exalted a chosen one out of the people.
I have found David, My servant; with My holy oil I have anointed him.
My hand shall be established with him; My arm also shall strengthen him.
The enemy shall not extract from him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him.
And I will beat down his foes before his face and plague those who hate him.
But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him; and in My name his horn shall be exalted.
I will set his hand also in the sea and his right hand in the rivers.
He shall cry to Me, ‘My Father, You are my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’
And I will make him My firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth.
I will keep My steadfast love for him forever, and My covenant shall stand fast with him.
Also, will I make his seed to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.
If his children forsake My law and do not walk in My judgments,
If they profane My statutes and do not keep My commandments,
Then I will visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.
But I will not completely take My lovingkindness from him, nor will I allow My faithfulness to fail.
I will not break My covenant, nor change the thing that has gone out of My lips.
Once I have sworn by My holiness, I will not lie to David.
His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me.
It shall be established forever like the moon, and like a faithful witness in the heavens.”
But You have cast off and rejected us; You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.
You have turned away from the covenant of Your servant; You have defiled his crown by casting it to the ground.
You have broken down all his hedges; You have brought his strongholds to ruin.
All who pass by the way plunder him; he is a curse to his neighbors.
You have set up the right hand of his enemies; You have made all his enemies rejoice.
You also have turned back the edge of his sword and have not made him stand in the battle.
You have made his glory to cease and have thrown his throne down to the ground.
The days of his youth You have shortened; You have covered him with shame.
How long, LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Shall Your wrath burn like fire?
Remember how short my time is; for what vanity have You created the sons of men?
What man lives and never sees death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?
O Lord, where are Your former lovingkindnesses which You swore to David in Your truth?
Remember, LORD, the reproach of Your servants, how I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people
With which Your enemies have reproached, O LORD; with which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed.
Blessed is the LORD forevermore. Amen and Amen.