PLEASING GOD WITH OUR LIVES

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Psalm 19:14

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

You may have heard these words of David spoken in the past:

“May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

Typically, I have heard them said before someone is about to speak about the Lord, either by way of a sermon or devotional message. In saying the words that end the 19th Psalm, the speaker yearns to ensure everything they say or feel during the message will be pleasing in God’s sight, that He might be glorified and magnified in every way.

As I consider this verse, I wonder if we all should be speaking these words as part of the prayer we start each day with. For as much as we thank the Lord for the blessing of the day, pray for His help in our needs and the needs of others, and offer ourselves to His will in service, we should also be praying that the words we speak and the things we ponder would be pleasing to the One who is our steady Rock and Redeemer.

Yes, David yearned for the words of his mouth to be pleasing to the Lord. We should do likewise.

For through the course of any one day, think about how many words we say. If married, we speak to our spouses. If we have children, we certainly speak to them, especially when they are growing up toward adulthood. We speak to family members and co-workers and friends. And we talk with people we meet while doing our daily errands, the postal clerk when we mail something, the cashier when we check out from the grocery store, the waiter or waitress at a restaurant.

Yes, we speak countless words. We should be praying about them.

For words have a power to them, don’t they? They have a power to build up but they also have equal power to tear down. Proper words can bless someone; improper words can curse and often the words we use are curse words, better known as profanity. In an extreme sense, words can save someone or they can destroy. My prayer is that the words I write are pleasing to the Lord and also faith-building and salvation-producing for the reader. Conversely, I have ministered to countless people who are deeply scarred from words that were spoken to them, injured and damaged badly, struggling to recover.

Can you relate to this, to the power of the spoken word?

Friends, God’s word calls for us to carefully consider the words we use, asking ourselves if what we’re about to say is pleasing in His sight.

So as you get set to speak to your spouse about a marital issue, you need to ask, “Lord, may these words of my mouth be leasing in Your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

Before you get set to correct a child for something they have done wrong, you need to ask, “Lord, may these words of my mouth be leasing in Your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

When a co-worker has done something against you and you need to confront them about it, you need to ask first, “Lord, may these words of my mouth be leasing in Your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

When a family member has wronged you in any way and discussion is needed to resolve, you need to call on the Lord and ask, “May these words of my mouth be leasing in Your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

And actually, before we even open our mouth to say anything, we should be asking, “Lord, may these words of my mouth be leasing in Your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.”

Imagine what a better world we would live in if we would just carefully choose the words we say. But words don’t start without an impulse from the heart. Whether spoken in love or anger, words get their genesis from the condition of one’s heart. This is why watching our words is just one half of the battle when it comes to pleasing the Lord.

Look back at verse 14. David wishes for the meditation of his heart to be pleasing in the Lord’s sight. In other words, David desired that everything he considered in his heart would find the Lord’s favor. And it all starts in the heart. Get your heart right and your thoughts will be favorable to God. And when your mind and heart are both right, so too will be your words.

So how do we get our hearts right? How do we ensure that everything from our core becomes pleasing to the Lord, our Rock and Redeemer?

We turn to Jesus.

After all, as Christians, we should be all about our Savior’s business, right? The root of our identity as Christians is the word Christ thus we are to embody everything that Christ was. To be Christian is to be Christ-like – and this is our only hope to ensure that the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts are pleasing to God. Have a heart like Jesus and you will live in a way that is always pleasing to God. It’s as simple as that.

So how do you get a heart like Jesus? How can we ensure that everything at our core is of Him? How can we ensure that when people hear us speak, it is as if they are hearing Jesus Himself speaking?

We have to accept Jesus as our treasure, our only treasure in life.

Jesus gave us this answer Himself as He provided His first in depth teaching during the Sermon on the Mount. He told us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). It was so simple a teaching and yet we too often miss it, and in doing so, miss the key to unlocking a life pleasing to the God who made us.

Jesus is telling us that our heart will be wherever we have our treasure. If your money is your treasure, then that’s where your heart will be. If a person is your treasure, like a parent or a spouse or a child, then that’s where your heart will be, in that person. If your treasure is some possession, then your heart will be attached to that possession. Your heart will be where your treasure is.

So why isn’t Jesus our treasure? Why shouldn’t the One who gave up everything for us, be the One we’re willing to give our all for? What don’t we value our Savior more than anything after He showed how much He valued us by dying in our place on the criminal cross of Calvary?

Friends, I don’t make life guarantees from a worldly perspective because the only certainty about life is that it is full of uncertainties. But when it comes to eternal promise, it’s easy to make guarantees, especially when they are grounded in the inerrant truth of the word of God.  

And so as I close today, I’ll give you one of the eternal guarantees from the Bible as spoken by the words of the perfect Jesus:

Choose Christ as your treasure and never value anything more than Him, and your heart will always be in Him. Cherish Jesus above all things and everything about you will be of Him, everything thing you do, everything you say, and everything you think. And with everything you do being in and through and of Christ, you will be living in a way that is pleasing in God’s sight, pleasing to the One who is our Creator, Redeemer and Friend, pleasing to the One who gave us the treasure of Jesus.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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