*This is the first post in a new, ongoing series of blogs from the book of Psalms. We hope that these bless you.

By Bunni Pounds

“Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.” (Verses 1 and 2)

There is only one important difference between saints and sinners, and that is the blood of Jesus. There is nothing else that separates us. We are Godly for one reason only, because we have been born from above and have taken on the nature of Christ by believing in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus through faith.

Are these verses then instructing us not to associate with sinners? Not really. Jesus hung out with the sinners of His day - the tax collectors and even the “questionable” women, but he did it to redeem them, not to gain their supposed “wisdom”. There is a difference.

These verses are instructing us to not draw wisdom from the “counsel of the ungodly” or hang out with the “scornful” - those who mock God. So many times, we try to gain wisdom from universities, scholars, and leaders in our country that don’t know God. They don’t have any understanding of what is right or wrong, or what is truth. Listening to them can give us knowledge, but they don’t hold ultimate wisdom. We have to pray that we are not led down the wrong path as “knowledge puffs up” (I Corinthians 8:2). That is why who we are listening to and walking within our lives is so important. We need godly wisdom.

True wisdom is only found in one place as it says in verse 2, the “law of the LORD”. The blessed man finds his delight in the “law of the LORD”.

What does that mean?

The law of the Lord is the instructions, teachings, and words of God that are superior to the words of man. That is where the “blessed man” finds his hope, and what we need to cleave to. The blessed man (or woman) knows that above all his earthly wisdom and thoughts, he can run to the words of God and find truth and life.

He (or she) knows above everything that his bread and his food for life are found in one place – the Word of God.

So, what does he do?

The blessed man meditates on the “law” and the teachings of God “day and night”. He cannot get enough. He puts the words of God always before him and chews on them over and over and over again. He doesn’t stop regardless of how difficult the words are [to hear and obey].

Meditation, in the Biblical and Christian sense, is not clearing your mind of everything like in eastern mediation; it is about actually filling the mind with the right things. A good picture of this is like a cow chewing his cud. We eat the food - the Word of God - and then we spit it out and then chew it again.

Did you know that cows have seven stomachs?

Like cows, after about the seventh time we might actually begin to understand what the Word of God is saying. It will start giving nourishment for our souls. In our human nature, we can, at times, be hard of hearing and understanding. We have to keep chewing and chewing until it breaks through our hard noggins and we have an understanding of what God is saying to us. That is true Christian meditation - a constant feeding on the Word of God until our minds become renewed and become more like Jesus.

“He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.” (Verse 3)

The blessed man who is constantly meditating on the Word of God is BLESSED. He is like a tree that grows fruit and is nourished by the waters of God. He doesn’t get weak or sickly; the blessed man is producing life and has vibrancy. This verse says that “whatever he does shall prosper.”

Why is he prospering? Why is he blessed?

Because he has found THE source of life – the Word of God, the teachings of the law, and the teachings of Jesus. He has found stability and freedom and therefore will produce fruit that is eternal because he is focused on eternal things.

I wish that prosperity in our souls and in our families just happened by osmosis. I wish a fairy godmother could just wave a wand and we would prosper.  I wish that prosperity where our businesses or jobs flourished was the result of just a snap of our fingers, but it isn’t. It takes hard work and being connected to a Source. It takes running to God and staying tied to the Source of Life especially on these days when the enemy is fighting tooth and nail to keep us from the presence of God. If we are planted by the refreshing rivers of the presence of God, we know what we will reap eventually. We will reap prosperity in our souls, our families, our finances, and our lives. We will find the ultimate HOPE and PROSPERITY which is JESUS.

That is God’s desire for us that we would be fully fed and watered, so that we will produce fruit. Isn’t that your desire as well?

Proverbs 5:15 says “Drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own well.”

It is time for the Body of Christ to grow up and learn how to water and feed themselves. That is why the Psalms are such a crucial starting place, because they are easy to digest. We cannot continue to depend on others to feed us – we must learn to feed ourselves the Word of God.

We don’t want to be like the ungodly that are described in the next verses of Psalm 1.

“The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.”  (Verses 4 and 5)

The “chaff” is the dry bracts enclosing mature grains of wheat which are removed during threshing. As a man threshes out the wheat, hitting it repeatedly and lifting it in the air on the threshing floor, the dry bracts are taken away by the wind. The mature grains of wheat remain for the man to pick up. It is beautiful.

The mature grains of wheat are heavier. They have depth and substance in them and that is similar to what God desires from us. He wants us to have the substance of His life in us. That is Godly maturity.

Luke 3:16-17 says, “John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”

We must be born again with His life, filled with His Holy Spirit, and then discipled into His daily food and water - the Word of God. This is the path to maturity, substance, and true prosperity.

“For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.” (Verse 6)

I love the promise in verse 6 that the “LORD knows the way of the righteous.”  The Lord is aware of where we are going. He is intimately involved in our lives and He has numbered even the hairs on our heads. (Matthew 10:30) It is so comforting to know that God cares about you and me and that if we call on the Name of the Lord that we will be saved (Acts 2:21). We can rest in those truths.

I don’t read the Message Bible for study, but at times it is fun to refer to their modern-language translation. This particular translation is hilarious, but it makes the point.

Psalm 1 from the Message Bible

 “How well God must like you— you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.

Instead you thrill to God's Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night.
You're a tree replanted in Eden,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf,
always in blossom.

You're not at all like the wicked,
who are mere windblown dust—
Without defense in court,
unfit company for innocent people.

God charts the road you take.
The road they take is Skid Row.”

Political Corner: For those of us in politics or serving as elected officials, we need to be careful where we get our information, who we are listening to while keeping the eternal perspective of where ultimate wisdom comes from. We can seek a multitude of counselors in many fields of academia and specialties, but we need to pray for discernment and continue to ask God for His thoughts. Many times, when we are not expecting it – God will drop a thought, a piece of wisdom, or a person in front of us – that can lead us down the path we need to go. If we feed ourselves His Word regularly and not abandon it – He is faithful to bring it back to our remembrance when we need it.

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