Deal bountifully with your slave

Deal bountifully with your slave, that I may live and keep your word. Psalm 119:17

David takes great pleasure in acknowledging his duty to God, and he counts it joy to be in God‘s service. He pleads because a servant has some influence on a master. Yet in this case, the wording eliminates a legal claim, for he seeks a favour and not a reward. Let my wages be according to Your goodness and not according to my merit. Reward me according to Your liberality and not according to my service. -My father‘s hired servants have bread enough and to spare (Luke 15:17). He will not let one of his household perish with hunger. If the Lord will only treat us as He treats the least of his servants, we will be deeply content. All His true servants, are sons, princes of the blood, heirs of life eternal.

David’s great needs required a bountiful provision, and his little desert could never give such a supply. Thus, he throws himself on God‘s grace and looks to the Lord and His great goodness for the great things he needs. He begs for heavy grace, like the one who prayed, -Oh Lord, You must give me great mercy, or no mercy, for little mercy will not help me.

Without abundant mercy, David could not live. It takes great grace to keep a saint alive. Even life is a gift of divine bounty to such undeserving ones as we. Only the Lord can keep us alive, and it is mighty grace that preserves the life we have forfeited by sin.

It is right to want to live. It is proper to pray to live, and it is just to ascribe prolonged life to God‘s favor. Spiritual life, without which natural life is mere existence, is also to be sought from the Lord‘s bounty. It is the highest work of divine grace, and in it God‘s bounty is gloriously displayed. The Lord servants cannot serve Him in their own strength. They cannot even live unless His grace abounds toward them. -CH Spurgeon  

1. Discuss how God has rewarded you not according to your merit, but according to His goodness. What kind of response has/does/should this generate? 

2. By God’s grace, we live in a country at a time when our temporal needs are richly provided and for most readily available. Yet there are great things we need. What are they and how do we approach God for these great needs?   

3. What are the marks of spiritual life that God has given us and how can we display them in this world to God‘s glory?