Psalm 119 encourages the believer to pray for open eyes. We are able to pray for open eyes because of the bountiful grace of our master. We need open eyes because we are strangers in the earth. And the benefit of open eyes is that we can behold wonderful things out of God’s law: the wonderful character of God; the wonderful promises of Christ; the wonderful rule of life; and the wonderful redemption, through Christ, from the penalty, the power, and the presence of sin.

The gospel driven marriage is marriage God’s way. And when the gospel is stewarded by both husband and wife, then the marriage is graced, the family is blessed, the church is strengthened and the Lord is glorified. But, as Paul here makes, the final responsibility for this is on the shoulders of the husband. And that responsibility is simply and soberly, husband, love your wife.

All believers aspire to grow in godliness, but all believers also know such growth in grace is a great challenge—sometimes a war, sometimes a storm, sometimes a struggle. The Bible recognises that sanctification is war, but it offers us hope—hope of victory in the war for growth in godliness. Psalm 119:9–16 focuses on this theme of sanctification. It assures us that God desires our sanctification, warns us that we cannot manufacture our own sanctification, and points us to the divine means of sanctification.

Submission, properly understood, is God’s gift to the women in a marriage relationship. It is also a gift to the husband. When he receives this gift, another gift is often reciprocated back to her. She gets two gifts! When submission is properly understood, and when it is appropriately exercised, wife and husband are blessed.

To live a life of integrity is to live a life that is whole and undivided. It is to live in such a way that what you see is what you get. The person of integrity lives a life in which there is no part that contradicts the whole. Integrity, for the Christian, has to do with the entire body and soul being devoted to God. Psalm 119:1–8 gives us some direction in achieving such integrity.

Much like the ancient Athenians, we live in a world where idolatry is pervasive and no one seems too bothered by it. Does it bother you? What are you doing about it? What are the best strategies to confront this ignorance of idolatry? Acts 17:16–34 gives us insight and direction in our consideration of this topic.

Psalm 36 offers us a revelation of pervasive, perverse evil, but it also gives a revelation of the God who prevails over all forms of evil. This is a psalm that encourages us to pray for God to preserve and protect his people by prevailing over evil.

Marriages begin as happy events, but in far too many cases they morph into painful scenarios, and discouragement, despondency, deep heartache and dissolution often result. Is there any hope? I believe that Ephesians 5:18–33 provides us with such. But, as Paul wrote to the Thessalonian believers in another context, it will require work of faith, labour of love and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 1:3).

In other words, even though a marriage has begun God’s way and yet has gone wrong, it can be restored to being a marriage, God’s way—again.

In Ephesians 5:18, Paul exhorts us to be filled with the Spirit. In v. 19, through the remainder of the epistle, he shows what it looks like to be filled with the Spirit: how it works itself out in church life (5:19–21), in marriage (5:22–33), in family (6:1–4), in the workplace (6:5–9), and in spiritual warfare (6:10–20). On Sunday morning Doug will give an overview of what it means to be Spirit-filled in marriage.

Psalm 35 is one of the imprecatory psalms, in which David prays for God to fight for him against his enemies. These psalms often seem counterintuitive to Christians today, who are accustomed to thinking of praying for their enemies rather than against their enemies. How should we think about the imprecatory psalms? Ought we to pray against our enemies? A careful consideration of Psalm 35 will help us in this regard.