10.5.2026 - Anneke DeJong

Monday, October 5, 2026

Our devotions this week were written by Anneke de Jong, a member of Visalia CRC.

As you enter your time with God, pause for a moment of silence and rest in His presence. Our text today comes from Psalm 119:1-8. Read through the passage slowly, meditating on the words and listening as God speaks to you.

א Aleph

Blessed are those whose ways are blameless,

    who walk according to the law of the Lord.

Blessed are those who keep his statutes

    and seek him with all their heart—

they do no wrong

    but follow his ways.

You have laid down precepts

    that are to be fully obeyed.

Oh, that my ways were steadfast

    in obeying your decrees!

Then I would not be put to shame

    when I consider all your commands.

I will praise you with an upright heart

    as I learn your righteous laws.

I will obey your decrees;

    do not utterly forsake me. (Psalm 119:1-8)

God Builds His Church Through His Essential Word

Last year our youngest son left for college. He attended a small university in a small town far from home. Before he left, he asked me to look up churches in the area and find one for him to attend. Since there weren’t any CRC or other Reformed denominations in town, I found the website of a church that looked like it had a vibrant congregation, with a good community for a college freshman. He went there the first Sunday and called me on the way home, “MOM! The pastor was on a screen, and they never opened the Bible once. I think I need to find a different church.”

Now, hopefully that Sunday was an exception, but my son’s response underscored an important truth: the Bible - the written Word of God - is a mark of a true church and the foundation on which the whole church throughout all the ages has been built. 

When the church began after Pentecost, the believers gathered together regularly to hear the apostles’ teaching. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42) The early church experienced a magnificent period of explosive growth and development as the Holy Spirit led the apostles to see clearly how the Word of God given to Israel (our Old Testament) had been fulfilled in Jesus. Their teaching and their eyewitness testimony about the person and work of Jesus Christ became the New Testament. 

God’s ancient word and this new inspiration were the foundation of what the church needed to know for salvation. Paul tells Timothy to “continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,  and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:14-15).  

As a modern theologian put it, “we need the revelation of God to know God, and the only sure, saving, final, perfect revelation of God is found in Scripture.”  

Consider what we would know about God without his written Word. Yes, we could know there is a God through creation. And we might even get a glimpse of what this God is like–his glory, his eternal power, and his divine nature (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:20). But without the Bible, we would not know why God created us. We could not understand why creation is broken and groaning. We would not know of his plan of salvation and redemption. And we would know nothing of Jesus and his love for us. 

The Bible tells the church the true story of Jesus Christ – God’s ultimate revelation and our salvation. Revealed to us in the pages of Scripture, through the power of the Holy Spirit, so that all who believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life. 

Thankfully, my son’s story has a happy ending. The following week, he attended a church built on the foundation of God’s word. This was evidenced by a man he met there named Max. Max was an older gentleman who had made it a practice to befriend younger men and disciple them in the ways of Jesus. They went to McDonald's most Sundays after church, and over the course of the year, Max showed my son what a life built on the truths of the Bible looks like. They still call each other regularly, and not long after my son got home, a package arrived from Max and his wife - a beautiful devotional based on the word of God. 

Blessed are those whose ways are blameless,

    who walk according to the law of the Lord.

Blessed are those who keep his statutes

    and seek him with all their heart— Psalm 119:1-2