There are Great Rewards for Those With Passion

I don’t just want to bumble through this day. I think I bumble by default. I want to be smart about how I handle the people and situations around me. I get this idea from the four verses below. They are my Monday Ps. 119 verses. I’m examining an eight-verse stanza a week. There is so much in the first four verses of Ps. 119:65-72 that I’m finishing up tomorrow.

I recoil at the word intentional because it’s so new-age Christian. Maybe passionate is a better word to describe how I should approach my life with God’s word top of mind today. I learn so much from David’s attitude. The stand-out verse for today is 66. I’ll be giving the devotional to the girls at the juvenile detention center tonight, and I’m going to trust God to give me good judgment and knowledge both before and during my dealings with them. They need to know God and Jesus, they just don’t realize it yet.

Psa 119:65-72  Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O LORD, according unto thy word.	It’s reassuring for a child to see that what a mother or father says, they mean. Rewards promised for compliance are kept. A smart child learns and benefits from that. In the same way, it seems to me (and to David) that the most satisfying life is one that figures out what God said, and complies. Mat 7:24-25  Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:  (25)  And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
(66)  Teach me good judgment and knowledge: for I have believed thy commandments.	I can see where David would ask for good judgment and knowledge. As king, a lot of people looked to him for a lot of things. He expected God to answer that prayer because he believed God’s commandments. Truly, a believer has a better chance than a nonbeliever of responding to situations and people with good judgment and knowledge because of that foundational belief in God’s word. This verse shows the path to successful leadership. Bible-believing Christians should make the best leaders because they know the source.
(67)  Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.	Pro 3:12  For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? It’s a fact. God corrects us so we will humble ourselves and correct our attitudes and our ways. We learn to turn.
(68)  Thou art good, and doest good; teach me thy statutes.	This verse is the balance. God doesn’t always get our attention just by disciplining us. If we’re attuned to him, he can just as easily get our hearts by being good to us. Psa 103:17-18  But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;  (18)  To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.