Psalm 119:18 Monday

“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.” Psalm 119:18

This is the verse I started using years ago that I used to tell the ladies in my Bible classes to pray when they went to their Bibles but didn’t know what to study. Many people want to study; they just don’t know how. This is where I think it starts. It’s such a simple prayer--not very long-- but very, very powerful and affective. It goes right along with Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in Ephesians 1:15-22, when he prays for the eyes of their heart to be enlightened.

This is what he prayed:

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know this hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

(JUST AS AN ASIDE) -- Did you read that? Did you really read every word of every sentence in that entire paragraph? If you didn’t, would you please go back and read it now? Would you not let Satan keep you from reading every word of every sentence in this paragraph? Please let me tell you something that someone told me years ago, that I, myself, have found to be true. If you are reading a passage of scripture and there’s a part of the verse you skim over or can’t remember if you’ve read it or not, that’s the very part of the verse you need to read, that Satan KNOWS you need to read, so he has you skim over it. That is the part of the verse you need to go back and read again and again and again. Please take reading every word of God’s word seriously.

Now, to explain Ephesians 1:15-22. I have read Paul’s prayer for the last forty-five minutes in The Complete Jewish Bible, The Message, The New Living Translation, The English Standard Version, The Amplified Version, The New Century Version, The New International Version plus Matthew Henry’s Commentary and I simply can’t wrap my mind around all the wonderful things Paul is saying here. I can’t write about what I was going to write about now. So, I’m leaving it up to you to extract the meat from this passage. It’s incredible, but beyond my ability to write about it in such a way as to do the passage justice. I can, however, say like Paul, that ever since I heard about YOUR faith in the Lord Jesus and YOUR love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for YOU, remembering YOU in my prayers -- those of YOU in Titus 2. This is what Paul said before he prayed, that I CAN articulate. Whenever I pray a prayer for YOU, I pray Paul’s prayer of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving – the time of year we pay attention to what we’re thankful for. Or rather, I hope we pay attention to WHO we’re thankful for. When I started to write this last night, I wrote until 1:00 a.m. trying to use this verse to point out that whenever we pray, “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” there’s no-thing in THE LAW that doesn’t point back to Jesus. Every scripture in the Torah (as this would have been), every word written in the entire Bible goes back to the cross and what Jesus did for us – who we are in Christ Jesus; that’s why Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is so important to me and why I was going to use it in conjunction with Psalm 119:18. I did not see last night that the connection between the two passages was thanksgiving; this morning I do. (It’s just like God to know the connection I needed to make, and reveal it to me the week of Thanksgiving.)

Right before Paul prayed for the Ephesians he told them who they were:

“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”

When you break this verse down to its simplest thought it reads, “In him we were also chosen …..in order that we …..might be for the praise of his glory.”

This is the true spirit of Thanksgiving. We praise God for who we are and whose we are. We were created to praise his glory. This is what we’re here to do.

I hope this Thanksgiving, that every time you remember what you’re thankful for, you remember WHO you’re thankful for and why -- the most important part. “Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law” and when you do, you will see Jesus.