Psalm 119:108 – A Freewill Offering

Accept with pleasure the freewill offering of my mouth, LORD,
and teach me your judgments.

Most translations treat the “freewill offering of my mouth” as praise, though I note that the LXX translates it quite literary as “voluntary [gift] of my mouth.” I don’t say this is wrong. In fact, Psalm 119 itself can be seen as an offering of praise, offering thanks and praise to God for the various aspects of God’s word and law.

But I think that a freewill offering of our mouths, and specifically what comes out of our mouths may be more than that. I’ve heard any number of preachers say that we’re willing to surrender everything to God, but we stop when it comes to our wallets. I think we stop before offering our speech, and by extension what we type, to God.

Is everything you write the sort of thing you would think was good and left a positive record. I don’t refer to the vigorous presentation of opinions that are important to you. There are those who consider any sort of firm opinion as impolite. I’m not talking about firm. I’m not talking about strongly expressed. I’m talking about things we say that are harmful.

• A group of church members in a Sunday School class run down their own church to a visitor
• Mistaking the speaker for the day for a visitor, rather than a new member, a church member makes a litany of complaints about “this church” to which the visitor would surely not want to belong
• A member of the church staff complains about other staff members in the hearing of people who are not responsible for dealing with staff issues
• A shopper is rude to the person manning the checkout lane because they are in a hurry and mildly inconvenienced
• A driver flips the bird at another driver whose driving skills are suboptimal
• A parent yells at a child instead of correcting them firmly but kindly
• We speak as if our disagreements in any area make another person less worthy of respect as a human being, created in the image of God
• Because we believe someone is sinful, we fail to respect their full personhood as human beings and God’s children

In 1 John 4 we read:

Beloved, let us love one another,
for love comes from God,
and everyone who loves has been born of God
and knows God.
The one of does not love does not know God,
because God is love.

If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen is not able to love God, whom he has not seen.

1 John 4:7-8,20, my translation

Now how did I get to loving God and our fellow humans from a freewill offering from our mouth?

I believe that lips expressing love will be giving the right kind of freewill offering, because God is love, and our love for God is shown by our love for one another. That offering will be determined by what is in your heart, “because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45, my translation).

What is going to come out of your mouth today?

(Featured image credit: By Wattana, licensed from Adobe Stock.)