Flowering Words

FLOWERING WORDS

Psalm 119:108

Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O LORD, and teach me thy judgments. 

 

             Before I share my own thoughts, let's take a look at  C. H. Spurgeon's exposition of Psalm 119:108,

  

  "Accept, I beseech thee, the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord." The living praise for the living God, and therefore the quickened one presents his sacrifice. He offers prayer, praise, confession, and testimony "these, presented with his voice in the presence of an audience, were the tribute of his mouth unto Jehovah. He trembles lest these should be so ill uttered as to displease the Lord, and therefore he implores acceptance. He pleads that the homage of his mouth was cheerfully and spontaneously rendered; all his utterances were freewill offerings. There can be no value in extorted confessions: God's revenues are not derived from forced taxation, but from freewill donation. There can be no acceptance where there is no willingness; there is no work of free grace where there is no fruit of free will. Acceptance is a favour to be sought from the Lord with all earnestness, for without it our offerings are worse than useless. What a wonder of grace that the Lord will accept anything of such unworthy ones as we are!

       

             "And teach me thy judgments." When we render unto the Lord our best, we become all the more concerned to do better. If, indeed, the Lord shall accept us, we then desire to be further instructed, that we may be still more acceptable. After quickening we need teaching: life without light, or zeal without knowledge, would be but half a blessing. These repeated cries for teaching show the humility of the man of God, and also discover to us our own need of similar instruction. Our judgment needs educating till it knows, agrees with, and acts upon, the judgments of the Lord. Those judgments are not always so clear as to be seen at once; we need to be taught in them till we admire their wisdom and adore their goodness as soon as ever we perceive them. 

         To utter a word to God is a serious thing. It is said that, too much familiarity breeds contempt. Sadly, this is so true to God's experience with His very own people. His kindness was and is abused; people are losing their sight about His attributes. They become complacent, and tactless on their dialogue with Him. The truth is, nobody is exempted, everyone failed!

         We tend to forget that though, He is our loving Father, and our faithful Friend, He is still our God, not just an ordinary person; He is the LORD, the King of the universe who must be addressed highly and honored greatly. Yes, we should honor Him with our mouth! But a lot of times we dishonor Him with our hypocritical words. When we say yes, but deep inside is a no; when we say I'll go but deep within, is there no other place? or maybe later; when we join the hallelujah chorus but our eyes is looking for someone we wish to see; when we have to sing for a special number in a worship service because there's no one else, but us, we're the last option, and we're ashamed to say no to the music director or to the Pastor: we just want to complete the program for that service, but deep within O why me?; when we are forced to teach or to preach because it's our duty and responsibility in church or school; we're expected to do it, so we have to, there's no choice, we are left without any options. These things are unacceptable to God: it has to be settled with God, or else our worship become a smoke to His eyes.

         We also need to think and evaluate the attitude of our words before we speak. It's not about how beautiful the accent is; not about the perfect grammar,  nor the articulation, not even how flowery the statements are. There are times that we tend to make the message nicely by using a lot of adjectives to describe something or someone, we used words which we think brilliant to hear to impress the listeners, O how smart we are! (but the truth is, the more complex we become, the more nonsense we appear to ordinary or average people we are talking to) No, flowering words do not matter to the audience, they may sound entertaining, but if they do not touch the heart, they are still meaningless; how much more to God who looks at the heart! Any uttered words without our heart in them are nothing but empty speeches and crawling ants to the ears. Yet, no matter how simple the message is; even if it is spoken by a stuttering tongue, as long as it is expressed in humility, sincerity, and in truth, God's grace and His Spirit will always interpret it to a man's heart: God will surely accept and use it. 

        Our conversation with God matters to Him. Though there are thoughts that are hardly expressed, but we don't have to worry about it, for God knows our heart. If the words from our mouth flows from a heart whose confidence and trust is found by loving and desiring God's laws, statutes, precepts, testimonies, and commandments, then our words will be genuine freewill offerings, more acceptable and pleasant before the throne of the just God.