True Hidden Treasure

God’s Word

“Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.”– Psalm 119-11

These words, penned by King David, give great evidence why he was called a man after God’s own heart. This is exactly what God wants. He wants us to treasure His Word, His Law. This was what He was trying to tell the Israelites in the Book of Exodus when He told them to bind it around your forehead and to put it on your doorposts. Though the Israelites took it literally, they missed the spiritual implications of the instruction.

What does it mean to “hide” His Word in [y]our heart? Usually when we think of hiding something, we think of putting it away for safety reasons or to protect it from prying eyes. Yet, when David said that he had hidden God’s Word in his heart, he was meaning just the opposite. He hid God Word in order that people may see that he possessed it!

Perhaps a better phrasing would be, “Your Word I have stored in my heart that I might not sin against You.” God does not want us to hide His word under or behind something. He wants us to live it so it will everyone will see. Psalm 1:2 says that the righteous person delights in the Word of God and meditates on it day and night. Why? To memorize it? No. Teachers will tell you that people who memorize things just for the purpose of memorizing them, do not really learn them and soon forgets what he memorized. On the contrary, we meditate not to memorize but internalize.

When David said he had hidden God word in his heart, he was saying that he had internalized it. He had digested it. He had made it a part of himself. It could be considered that he was saying that he had made God’s Word so much a part of him (his heart) that you could not tell it from him; thus it was ‘hidden’. They were so much alike that they were essentially blended together. One could not tell where the Word ended and David’s heart began.

Could this be said about you and God’s Word? Have you made it so much a part of your life that you no longer have to think to do it, it becomes nature? An analogy I often use is that of a cupcake. I love Hostess cupcakes (though the sugar doesn’t love me). In the middle of the cupcake is the cream filling. In the cupcake is sugar, flour, eggs, chocolate, and a host of other things. You can separate out the cream filling and still have the cupcake. You cannot separate out the sugar from the cupcake. To those of memorize the Word of God, the Word is the cream filling. To those who internalize it, the Word is the sugar.

In your life, is the Word cream filling or sugar? If it isn’t sugar, ask God to help you change that. Develop a plan to read and study God’s Word regularly. Don’t just read it; understand what it says and why it says it. Once you understand the purpose for it, applying it becomes easier.

Be transformed!