Bible Study

February 9, 2010
Bethany Ellis

Not too lon ago, my Pastor (aka, my Dad) preached on Psalm 1. I learned a lot from it, and decided to share with you all

How to Have a Blessed Life

Psalm 1

 

Blessed is the man
       who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
       or stand in the way of sinners
       or sit in the seat of mockers.

The blessed person doesn’t go his own way, listen to the crowd, or rebel against God. 

 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
       and on his law he meditates day and night.

The blessed person is all about God.. he finds his joy and delight in God-and in God’s word. So much so that he is constantly filling himself with it – day and night, all the time, non-stop.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
       which yields its fruit in season
       and whose leaf does not wither.
       Whatever he does prospers.

Because of all this, he or she (the blessed person) is like a strong, tall and might tree that’s planted by a river and turns gorgeous colors in the autumn and bears perfect fruit in the spring. The tree is immovable and never withers away or fails to yield its fruit. Everything the blessed man does will go well – because He’s doing exactly what God wants.

Not so the wicked!
       They are like chaff
       that the wind blows away.

The wicked man is just the opposite. Instead of being a strong tree, he is simply dust that blows away in the slightest breeze – no substance or strength at all.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
       nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

Since the wicked walk their own way, go with the crowd, and rebel against God, they won’t last one second at judgment time -and they have no place with those who are righteous.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
       but the way of the wicked will perish.

They (the wicked) don’t have a place with the righteous (the blessed people) because the Lord watches over the blessed and all he does – He takes care of them and guides and guards them. God will make their ways straight- right into Jesus’ arms. But the wicked man -everything he does is wicked and his ways are evil; he shall not last long before he dies in his wicked, selfish, and rebellious ways.

Putting It All Together

If you want to have a blessed life, you have to be righteous (makes sense, right?). How do you do that? According to this passage, you can’t go your own way and expect God to bless you. You must go GOD’S way-and live your life in complete surrender to Him. Secondly, you can’t just “go with the flow”  or listen to what the crowd is telling you. You have to stick with what God’s telling you. And thirdly, which sums it all up, is you can’t rebel against God. It’s a procession, really – First a person starts to go her own way, then she starts listening to others advice instead of heeding God’s instruction, and then she’s rebelling completely against God. That is the wicked one -  and since they’re only following themselves and their own desires, when trouble comes, like a car that hits a tree and gets totalled, they will be destroyed.

But when you’re following God, listening to Him, and surrendered to him, you’re pleasing to Him! And, the awesome thing is, according to this Psalm, if you are completely stuck on God, you become like a tree – a really, really strong tree. You don’t have to worry about anything blowing you out of the water. That’s what happens to the wicked, but not the righteous; because God takes care of them. Have you ever seen a car hit a tree? The tree might shake a little, but it never falls or breaks. So no matter what comes at you, no matter how hard things get, or how confusing your life becomes, because you’re rooted in Jesus, you won’t be destroyed. You won’t be the car that gets totalled, you’ll be the tree that stood strong.