“Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word.” - Psalm 119:17

It is made obvious to us, in the first place, that our lives - just as the psalmist’s - depends wholly on the grace of our Lord. It is asked of God that he “deal bountifully” with his servant. That is to say, he is asking that he be rewarded and repaid with a magnificent bounty from the Lord. This bounty is what gave us life at the start, and it continues to give us life even now, and if it were withheld we would surely die - at least in some sense. But notice the purpose for his desire to be rewarded: it is that life may persist for the continued keeping of God’s word. This is an altogether different motive than we often see around us today. Many want their lives to continue so they may persist in the comforts of this world, or they may be striving for life and youth for the sake of beauty and reputation. Whatever their motives may be, they are not ours. Observe, that it is the desire of the Christian for life to persist that we may continue in keeping God’s word.

It is God himself who preserves our lives that we may continue in obedience to him. For it was God who made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in sin (Ephesians 2:4-5). It was God who gave us life through adoption and by this, we overcome the world (1 John 5:3-4). Therefore David’s plea to be rewarded with a bounty of life to keep God’s word is the cry of all the ages and is fulfilled in Christ. We have been rewarded in the beloved, and will never taste death if we have the words of God in us (John 8:51). And this is the ironic conclusion: The very words that give us life are the same words that we long to be alive to keep! Praise God!