Psalms 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
They are genuinely happy who do two things: they keep God’s testimonies and they seek Him with the whole heart. As noted in the introduction, the word testimonies is one of the various words describing the word of God, the Scriptures. First of all, what is it to keep His testimonies?
Keep – To have regard, pay attention to, observe. To pay attention or regard to; to observe, stand to, or dutifully abide by (an ordinance, law, custom, practice, covenant, promise, faith, a thing prescribed or fixed, as a treaty, truce, peace, a set time or day.
The blessed souls pay attention to God’s word. They do not ignore their Bible. They read it and listen to it preached. They dutifully believe and practice what the Bible teaches. They defend the Bible. Of course, in order to keep the testimonies, it is imperative that one have the testimonies. It is pretty hard to keep something you don’t have. Duh! I thought I would throw some slang in there to give you a break from my rather lofty style of writing.
The God Who gave us His words has promised to preserve them.
Psalms 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
Anyone who follows my teaching knows that I believe that the A.V. 1611 or the King James Version of the Bible is the pure, preserved word of God in the English language. I consider myself blessed to have God’s testimonies and my greatest happiness is found in keeping them.
The blessed souls are also those that seek God with the whole heart. God will not be sought half-heartedly. This was one of the Lord’s chief complaints against Israel.
Jeremiah 3:10 And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD.
God considers it pretence if you are not seeking Him with your whole heart. You may profess to be entirely devoted to God, but in reality you have something else that you are devoted to that competes with your pursuit of the Lord. It may be your educational goals, your professional goals, your financial goals, your family, your social life, or your pleasures. These things are all fine in their place so long as they are always subordinate to seeking the Lord to please Him and to do His will. If you are struggling with a divided heart, then this prayer is a suitable one for you to pray:
Psalms 86:11 Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.
One who seeks God with a united heart seeks God with his whole heart. His heart is not divided.
Observe that seeking God is connected by the word and to keeping His testimonies. God will be sought on His terms! Keeping God’s testimonies is essential to seeking God with the whole heart. And this pertains to things we might consider unimportant. The man who seeks God with his whole heart considers nothing God has said as indifferent or unimportant. When David at first attempted to bring the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, the ark was carried on a cart drawn by oxen. When the oxen shook the ark, Uzzah put for his had to steady the ark and God smote Uzzah for it. Uzzah did not have authority from God to touch His ark. Furthermore, the ark was supposed to be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, not on a cart drawn by oxen. David later recognized his error as the following passage shows:
1 Chronicles 15:11 And David called for Zadok and Abiathar the priests, and for the Levites, for Uriel, Asaiah, and Joel, Shemaiah, and Eliel, and Amminadab,
12 And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.
13 For because ye did it not at the first, the LORD our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.
How the ark was carried might seem trivial to us. Many would reason that as long as the ark got to Jerusalem that was all that mattered. But God had commanded that the ark be carried by the Levites and He would tolerate no deviation from His order of doing business. And David connects this with seeking the Lord. So do not talk about seeking God with your whole heart, unless you are willing to do anything and everything that God says the way He says to do it.
Lastly, you are indeed blessed if you are keeping God’s testimonies and seeking Him with your whole heart because these are evidences that you have the Spirit of God within you and that God has given you a new heart.
Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Jeremiah 24:7 And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
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