Psalm 119:7 I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.

I was saved in a Christian culture that acted as if everything was within God’s control. I understand their point of view now, but why didn’t they place at least a little importance of the process of participation? In today’s verse I would like to point to the phrase when I have learned. The mind has to take an active role in understanding. Knowledge does not come from slothfulness. That is not God’s desire for us.

Psalms 32:9 Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle,

Change comes from experience, active participation in those things the Father asks of us. Sure He has given us free will, but He has also given us His Word. To do His Word is to grow in character, in knowledge, and in relationship. The cake doesn’t just suddenly appear because you bought a cook book.

The second condition of today’s verse is uprightness of heart. Doing the right thing means nothing if the condition of the heart has not changed. It is more than begrudging willingness. To do because it is who you are in character is the goal. That takes a change of heart.

Jeremiah 17:9-11 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not;

Merely doing is insufficient, the end result is what counts. That brings me to the third point. I praise God by the life I live if I take an active role of cooperative participation. This is the life that pleases God.