HOW TO READ THE PSALMS

I consider all Your commands.

I learn Your righteous laws.

I will obey Your decrees.Psalm

119.6-8

The Psalms were written by David and men like him whose hearts were set on knowing God.

The very first Psalm tells us the secret to understanding:  “Meditation.”

 Blessed is the one…whose delight is in the Law 

and who meditates on His Law day and night.

    Ps. 1.-2

The method of the “secret of ‘Meditation’” is found in these three verses of Psalm 119.6-8.

V. 6—I will consider  all Your commands.

V. 7 –I will learn Your righteous laws.

V. 8—I will obey Your decrees.

To “meditate day and night on the Law of the Lord” (Ps. 1.2) is simply “consider all God’s commands.”

To “consider all” God’s commands is easy enough. 

To “consider” is simply to read prayerfully and thoughtfully.

Yes.  That’s all.  Just read.  Prayerfully and thoughtfully.

Whatever You read, read prayerfully and thoughtfully, and God will do the rest.

Jesus puts it just as simply:

If you continue in My word, 

you will know the truth,

and the truth will set you free.

 John 8.32

If you abide in Me, 

and My word abides in you,

ask whatever you wish 

and it will be done for you.

John 15.7

If we ask anything according to His will, 

He hears us.

And …we know that we have 

what we asked of Him.

1 John 5.14-15

If you read prayerfully and thoughtfully, 

the Holy Spirit will “guide you into all truth” (John 16.13).

The Holy Spirit will enable you

to learn some of what you read.

We cannot learn everything, 

but we can learn some 

and the Holy Spirit will lead us to the things 

we need to know 

at the time we are reading.

From what we read and learn,

the Holy Spirit will give us

 the wisdom and power 

to obey and do 

what He is guiding toward.

In these three simple steps

—consider, learn, obey—

we become like the tree of Ps. 1.3

that “yields its fruit in season and…prospers.”

We will be like the 

“oaks of righteousness, 

a planting of the Lord 

for the display of His splendor.”  Isaiah 61.3

We will be wise to be like the man 

who built his house on rock 

by hearing and then doing what Jesus said.

It would be foolish 

not to do so.

Matthew 7.24-27