The Lord has indeed "commanded us to keep His precepts." But, alas! where is our power?

When you aim at the perfect standard of holiness, you should, at your best moments, and in your highest attainments, fall so far below it; seeing indeed the way before you, but feeling yourself without ability to walk in it? Then let a sense of your helplessness for the work of the Lord lead you to the throne of grace, to pray, and watch, and wait, for the strengthening and refreshing influences of the Spirit of grace. Here let your faith realize at one and the same view your utter insufficiency, and His complete All-sufficiency....We might as soon create a world, as create in our hearts one pulse of spiritual life. And yet our inability does not cancel our obligation. What then remains for us, but to return the mandate to heaven, accompanied with an earnest prayer, that the Lord would write upon our hearts those statutes, to which He requires obedience in His word?, "You have commanded us to keep Your statutes diligently." We acknowledge, Lord, our obligation; but we feel our impotency. Lord, help us: we look unto You. "Oh that our ways were directed to keep Your statutes!" "Give what You command and then command what You will." (Augustine.)

"Faith is then the principle of evangelical obedience, and the promises of His grace enables us for duty, at the very time that we are commanded to it. In this view are brought together the supreme authority of the Lawgiver, the total insufficiency of the creature, the full provisions of the Savior, and the all-sufficiency of "the God of grace."

Oh that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes! - Ps.119:5

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Quote from Exposition on Psalm 119 by Charles Bridges (free eBook)