Ps 139 5 You hem me in-behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain".

The Apostle says in 1 Cor 5 7Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast - as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."

The apostle is teaching that we are made complete by the work of Christ. Our struggle is not primarily having tension with the world or our personal corruption but becoming familiar with our identity with Christ. The only means by which we can grow and become comfortable in our identity is by word and Spirit. David is describing the discipline of finding all of our satisfaction and security in Christ by daily meditation. We grow by thinking thoughts after God. We must learn to trust in the literal teaching of the bible and comparing all of the teaching and counsel in this world with the bible.

David is teaching that we are naturally unable to trust in our untaught perspective of the events in our lives. We must develop the habit of distrusting the counsel of this world by a fear of acting without first thinking about it as we meditate. Psalm 139 is the philosophy that David has developed by many hours of meditation.The words express the enjoyment of the desires of a man who is fulfilled by the counsel of God that has been etched in His mind through meditation. Psalm 139 is the fulfillment of David as he has overcome the opposition in viewing everything in his life through Gods word.

He is teaching that without the discipline of meditation he would have perspectives that would lead him in a way that would add sorrow to his experience. You see the problem is not that we gain knowledge in order to know the wisest thing to do. But we develop our love for God in the power of the Spirit in order to overcome our attraction to anything that would weigh us down. David is teaching that the christian life is primarily casting off things that are pleasing to us but they hold us back from finding all of our satisfaction in God.5 You hem me in-behind and before.

Without the means of faith we are unable to cast off the weight of the good things in this world. We all are searching for true satisfaction. The world offers us satisfaction that is limited and fleeting. The problem is that we think we are able to shield ourselves from the pull of the enjoyment of that thing that will not satisfy us. The truth is that we are comfortable in our natural desires with being controlled by something. We must break with that habit. Because Christ has made us free of the control of things. It takes more than a warning to break the relationship. We must be renewed in the spirit of our minds. Our discipline of meditation must take us to a place of freedom in Christ that is so much better that we have no desire to be controlled. We must be able to pour out our hearts with freedom as David has expressed in 139. So we need God to hem us in from the temptations that are too strong for us. We must meditate on His counsel as the only way to judge all things.