ר Resh153 Look on my suffering and deliver me,  for I have not forgotten your law.  154 Defend my cause and redeem me;  preserve my life according to your promise.  155 Salvation is far from the wicked,  for they do not seek out your decrees.  156 Your compassion, Lord, is great;  preserve my life according to your laws.  157 Many are the foes who persecute me,  but I have not turned from your statutes.  158 I look on the faithless with loathing,  for they do not obey your word.  159 See how I love your precepts;  preserve my life, Lord, in accordance with your love.  160 All your words are true;  ll your righteous laws are eternal.  REFLECTIONSWritten by Vincent ChanHere’s an exercise: Try and read verse 157-159 slowly.  How did it make you feel? For myself, it firstly felt foreign – I don’t feel like I have persecutors or adversaries, less so a desire to look upon people in disgust. But it also made me feel like a hypocrite – only this morning I was distracted in my own quiet times, how can I say I ‘love your precepts’ with confidence? And so, these passages make me thankful for Jesus. Jesus is the only one who truly ‘loved’ God’s law in the way this passage calls for. I am thankful that even when I find my own heart dull to God’s word, I remember my Saviour, who’s heart was never dull and promises me a new heart that will grow in love.  But this passage also reminds me that to live contrary to God’s way is not simply a different life choice, it’s to go against the God whose word is truth and whose precepts give life. Salvation is indeed far from the wicked because the wicked do not even recognise the need for salvation. Can it be that even as we are to love and long for the lost to know Christ, there is a rightful place in which we are offended for God’s honour that people are rejecting his rightful rule?  And finally, this passage gives hope. “Every one of your righteous rules endures forever” this section ends with. There is something significant in knowing the truths and realities I read in Scripture will never change. Never. Not with years, not with seasons, not with how I feel, not with how the world looks – God’s truth is the truest thing that I can possibly know and trust in. May we continue to trust in the one who does not change.  ABOUT THE AUTHORVincent Chan is an Assistant Minister with our Fairfield congregations.