Rejoicing in God’s Statutes: A Call to Honest Self-Evaluation | Psalm 119:14

Psalms 119:14

¹⁴ I rejoice in following your statutes

as one rejoices in great riches. (NIV)

The human mind has the uncanny ability to partition off what doesn’t bring comfort, ease, and pleasure. The Scripture teaches that many will claim to be following the Lord, but in the end, He will say that He never knew them. We may have convinced ourselves that we are following His statutes, but if we are not rejoicing over the evidence of God’s faithfulness to our obedience, it may be time for some honest evaluation of our walk with Christ.

Statutes originate from a Latin word that means "testimonies." When the psalmist says he rejoices in following the Lord’s statutes, he is referring to his experience of seeing that all God has said about Himself, and all the people of God have said about God, is true. He has discovered this from stepping out to follow the statutes. As he follows the laws of God, He sees that God is faithful to His promises, and the testimonies of past saints are validated in his own experience. 

But when we partition our apathy or disobedience to the ways of God, it can make us wonder if God is a liar, if other believers are lying in their testimonies. However, we have thousands of years of testimonies, dating back to Moses, and extending up to the last testimony we heard from someone. If God were a liar, we would know it by now. If God is not lying, and other believers are testifying truthfully to their experiences, then we must look within to identify areas where we are not actually following His ways. 

The mercy and goodness of God make it easy for us to ignore some of His statutes. He has called us to grow in Him. It is a process. Because of this, we do not receive our full reward for obedience nor our full punishment for disobedience in the moment. Instead, the Lord gives us grace and blesses us as a way of calling us further into obedience to His ways. Then, He evaluates the general directions and leanings of our hearts to know if we are moving in the right direction overall. So even when we disobey in one area, we do not lose all of God’s blessings. Instead, the Lord balances our discipline according to the condition of our hearts and not according to a single decision made in the moment. Therefore, we must take it upon ourselves to self-evaluate and hold ourselves accountable to others, or we will too easily close our eyes to the areas where we are weak. Then, we will rejoice in His statutes.

Prayer: Lord, help me not to take the Lord’s kindness for granted, but to evaluate daily the condition of my heart made evident by my behaviors and attitudes. Amen.