Psalms 119:5

O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!

Virtuous solicitude

A solicitude to perform our duty, to practise holiness at all times, and to make a constant progress in it, is an essential ingredient in a virtuous temper, a necessary qualification of our obedience, and a powerful means of our becoming active and steadfast in it.

It implies--

1. A lively sense of the supreme importance of holiness.

2. A settled love of goodness, and hatred of iniquity.

3. A vigorous, constant, and prevailing desire to keep God’s statutes.

4. A firm resolution to keep them.

5. A prevailing bias of the whole soul towards virtuous practice.

6. Fervent desire of God’s assistance in the practice of holiness. (A. Gerard, D. D.)

The temporal lot of a good man subservient to the advancement of his personal religion

I. A truly good man will be concerned to keep the statutes of God. He is as much concerned to avoid secret as open sins; he seeks intently a temper devout and spiritual; he finds an unutterable pleasure in striving, and watching, and praying that not a single particular in the Christian temper or conduct may be found absent from him.

II. A good man will at some periods be especially concerned to keep the statutes of God.

1. Perhaps an extensive and an affecting sight of the Divine holiness is instrumental in producing this improvement.

2. A fixed and an admiring contemplation of the grace of the Gospel is sometimes productive of a similar effect.

3. Affliction is sometimes the forerunner of this enlarged concern.

III. When a good man is thus especially concerned to keep the statutes of God, his temporal lot will be rendered subservient to the promotion of his personal religion. “O that my ways,” my general circumstances, and the daily and hourly incidents which occur, “were directed to keep Thy statutes,” to advance my personal religion.

IV. In order to the temporal lot of a good man becoming thus subservient to the advancement of his personal religion, he must be aided by a Divine interposition.

1. In the form of a wise and benevolent appointment.

2. In the form of a gracious influence. (Essex Remembrancer.)

Longings

A longing after the good, after anything higher and better than the sinner has, what is it but the beginning of the new life, its first pulsation, its first and feeblest cry? It is the confession of sin and want. This need may give expression to itself in the quiet, trustful prayer of childhood, saying to God, “My Father, wilt Thou not from henceforth be the guide of my youth?” This need may be spoken with a heavy heart and a downcast face by the young prodigal, as he stands in presence of the shame and poverty which his own sin has created. This need may be spoken by the philosopher who, having sought for rest for heart and intellect in every theory of the universe and in every method of life but the Divine, and sought in vain, turns at last to the Fountain of living waters. It is a longing which may be quickened by very diverse things, or it may move of itself, as we think; yet in all is there the presence and power of the Spirit of God. Nor when the soul has come to the knowledge of God, when its first longing has been spoken and has been met by the bestowal of a heavenly gift, is there an end of longing and desiring. In fact, it may be said that longings do but then begin. By giving pardon and cleansing, God does but open the door to the demand for a perfect righteousness. The soul sees above it an ever higher ideal than it has yet attained to, and, therefore, longs and prays for it. Our longings are like the wings of the soul upon which it is borne, if only for a moment, into a purer and heavenlier clime. They set us in motion Godward. Call not the wishes of the heart vain and useless; for they are the spirit of our prayers, they turn our wills and fix our resolutions; they are the beginnings of the kingdom of heaven. Impalpable, and coming even upon him who has them as the breeze comes upon the still lake and stirs it with life and motion, these yearnings and longings anticipate and determine a man’s destiny. When a man says, “I wish to pray; I wish to know God; I wish to be a new man,” he speaks weightier words than when kings or statesmen issue manifestoes and proclamations. That is the opening up of his case with his Father and Saviour. “Sir, we would see Jesus,” said some Greeks to Philip, who had come up to the feast to worship, and that wish of theirs caused a response on the part of Jesus, the effect of which is felt in the words of Jesus in multitudes of souls to-day, and shall be for ever and ever. (J. P. Gladstone.)