Psalms 1
June 3, 2018
READ: Psalm 1
PRAY: Ask God to speak to you through this Psalm and make you like a flourishing tree planted by a river of life.
This poetic wisdom psalm contrasts two types of people and two destinies. There is the wicked person and the godly person. The wicked will not stand after God’s judgment; they have no anchor in God’s word. But the godly are guarded by the Lord; their path does not end in destruction.
The godly person does not follow the wicked, instead they delight in the Lord’s commands. We could also understand this flowing the other direction, too: Why does the godly person not find wickedness attractive? Because they are satisfied with God and have been formed by His word to have different desires. They are rooted—planted like a tree—in the life-giving fountain of God and His word.
This psalm presents a picture of life as it should be: flourishing, fruitful, and fulfilling. The secret? Delighting in God and His Scripture. As we enter summertime and you see the greenness of growth at every turn, ask yourself: are the trees fulfilling their purpose more than I am? Are they growing and testifying to the goodness of the One who made them? And as we breathe the air those trees produce, are we similarly rooting ourselves in our source of spiritual life? Are we yielding spiritual fruit that testifies to the goodness of the One who made us?
The blessed person is the one who delights in God; may we delight in Him and truly live.
REFLECT:
1. Be honest, do you ‘delight in the Lord’s instruction’ (v. 2)? Why or why not? Have you ever?
2. What do you think it looks like for a person to be “like a tree planted beside streams of water that bears fruit…and whose leaf does not wither…” (v. 3)?
3. Take some time to examine your life and assess if you are bearing fruit, if you are flourishing even in tough times. If so, praise the Lord for it. If not, ask God to make it so in your soul.
MEMORIZE: Psalm 1: 1-2
Psalm 1
The Two Ways
1 How happy is the one who does not
walk in the advice of the wicked
or stand in the pathway with sinners
or sit in the company of mockers!
2 Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
4 The wicked are not like this; instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.