The Psalms are one of my favorite parts of scripture. It has been a habit of mine to read through all of them several times a year. I believe the Psalms to be rich scriptures, that build up the soul. The Psalms teach you how to pray, how to worship, and how to believe God. This is the first of a recurring series, where I will be exploring the Psalms with you. We will go in order through the Psalms, and pull out the treasures within. The Psalms start with the promise of blessing. The person who lives according to the truth found in Psalm 1 will be blessed and prosperous.
What does it mean to be blessed? To be blessed in the most simple form, is to be happy and joyful. Blessing is being filled with the pleasure of God in your heart. To be blessed is to have God’s tangible presence in your life, for His hand to be on you, and to be in His will. To be blessed by God also means that God empowers you to succeed in every area of your life. To be blessed means that you will have a fruitful harvest on every type of seed you sow. Blessing can be explained through prosperity. When you have God’s blessing, He makes you prosperous internally in your inner man, and that soul prosperity flows outward into every part of life. God’s blessing is visible on the outside, because it is overflowing from the inside. Psalm 1 starts like this,
“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!”
Psalms 1:1 NASB
The person who wants to walk in God’s blessing must be very careful about the company they keep. Remember this, Jesus was a friend of sinners, but He had a close inner circle. Be good and kind to everyone, but be careful about who gets into your inner circle. You become like the people you spend the most time with. So be close with godly people.
Don’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. That means be careful with the advice you listen to. Don’t take advice from ungodly sources and expect godly results. God results require godly advice. To walk in blessing, it’s wise to diligently guard the voices you heed in your life. Listen to the people who are like what you want to become. Don’t believe everything you hear, but learn to trust the voice of the Holy Spirit.
You are blessed when you avoid evil in every way possible. That is why the scripture says not to stand in the path of sinners. Maybe you have no intention of living a destructive lifestyle. But if your closest associates are destroying their life, they will almost certainly bring you down with them. A fire spreads quickly in the right environment. So does foolishness and the destruction it brings. If you are on the path of sinners, it won’t be long until you are headed in the same direction. A sinking ship drowns everyone on it, so be careful about whose boat you are on. Jesus died and rose again to set you free from sin, not for you to wallow in it. You are the light of the world. You can’t be a good light if you are constantly walking in darkness. Consider that no one becomes a Christian because of the friend that is just like them, but because of the Christian, who by God’s Grace demonstrates love, holiness, and power. Based on this passage you can be blessed or cursed by the people closest to you, so be wise about who you fellowship with. Guard who you give your heart to.
To be blessed, don’t sit in the seat of scoffers. Notice the progression in the passage. You start off walking according to terrible advice. Before long you are standing still with sinners. You are complacent and coasting, slowly fading from being like Christ, and gradually looking like the lost. Then when you least expect it, you are sitting down. You are in the seat of the scoffer. This negative progression ends up with you doing nothing of value or worth and only living to make fun of, and scoff at those who are walking with God on the blessed path. If you find yourself mocking people who are serving God, it’s a guarantee you aren’t. Brothers and sisters, walk on the blessed path. Go with God, and do His works. Verse 2 shows us where to start.
“But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.”
Psalms 1:2
Verse 1 showed us what not to do. Verse 2 shows the core of how to be blessed. The key to being blessed is to delight in God’s word, and to meditate in it all the time. Don’t get distracted by the word law. The Bible isn’t saying to focus on everything you have to do right to please God. That would be impossible for you to do. Jesus is your perfection. He kept the law for you so that by faith you can be pleasing to God. When you understand the Gospel, you know that the Son of God became a man. Jesus lived a perfect sinless life for you. He kept all of God’s law perfectly and with failure. He died on the cross as the perfect sacrifice to pay for your sins. And He rose from the dead for your justification. So the law of the Lord in your heart is not about your law keeping, but about your focus on the Lawgiver. As you delight in God’s total revelation, you delight in Him. As you delight in God and see who He is, and what He is like, you become like Him. You are blessed, because you become more like God. He is your friend, and in fellowship with Him, you are transformed. The greatest gift you can receive is the gift of God Himself. Walking with God is the key to blessing and prosperity, because you are delighting in Him, and being filled up on the inside with everything you need. Beloved reader delight in God’s word and be blessed.
Refreshing Grace 