Blessed is the man....but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. The book of Psalms opens up telling us how a man blessed of God (man means man or woman, of course) acts. In verse one it says the man blessed of God does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
We see that there is a clear division between the godly man (the blessed man) and the ungodly. The man blessed of God, has turned his back to wickedness, he does not listen to the counsel of wickedness. That means he does not listen to those who are wicked, he does not follow the path of wickedness of the culture. He is able to recognize the division and he stays firmly planted on the side of godliness. He recognizes that it better to be on the side of Christ, than with the ungodly multitude who follow the culture.
The ungodly does not care for godliness and he rejects the things of God, so much that he becomes a scoffer of the things of God. Jude 18 says ... in the last days there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions. Jude is talking about people who are in the church, not people outside the church. People who sit in churches causing division and ultimately scoffing at the things of God.
The man blessed of God is a happy man because he delights in the Word of God. The Word of God has become precious to him. He knows it is the Word of God and he looks to it as his guide, he thinks about it, reads it, and meditate on it, because he has found it to be Truth, to unfold the Majesty of Christ, to be the ultimate reality. He does not allow himself to become comfortable with those who scoff at Christ and have no time for Him.
The man blessed of God produces fruit, fruit that helps others, as he serves. He is like a tree planted by streams of water. He is being nourished abundantly by Christ as he ponders the Word of God, as he prays for the strength, courage to live the Word. He will prosper in godliness.
Psalms one express the absolute surety of the Word of God, the absolute assurance that God will bless His children as they by His grace seek His face in reading the Word, praying the Word, and living the Word through obedience. It also expresses the absolute assurance of the judgment of the wicked. Just as we can be sure and count on the man blessed of God to be held in affection and cared for by God, we can be just as sure that the wicked will perish.
We must be clear also, that although we do not follow what the ungodly follow, we are to have compassion for them, because we were once ungodly, and God by His mercy had someone to speak Truth to us, and the Holy Spirit brought life to us. We were blind and scoffers of Christ, but by the Grace of God we are now blessed of God.
It is the longsuffering of God that we have each and every new morning. By God's grace, when we wake up tomorrow morning we who are blessed of God will be greeted with:"The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23) The terrible news for those who are scoffers of Christ is that they will be greeted with: "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness." (Matthew 7:23)
Those are terrible words for anyone to hear. It grips my heart in anguish to think, that someone would go to hell, God warns us not to go there, Jesus pleads with us not to go there. God in lovingkindness gives us day after day to repent and come to Him. This is serious, the most serious thing in the world. Lets us earnestly pray for our neighbors, for those people we see each day, although they may be scoffers of Christ today, by the STRONG grace of Christ their hard hearts can be turned and they can become blessed of God. God's people are placed in their path so that they might pray fervently for their salvation, and that they,or someone else would meet them at the time appointed by the Holy Spirit to speak the word of life to them, the Word of Christ to them. That is our calling Christians, that is what brings glory to God.
Pray with fervency and with earnestness for those around you, you have been blessed of God for that very purpose!!
In Christ, for Christ.
Next study: The Psalms
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