For The Lord Watches Over The Way Of The Righteous

Seeing what’s happening around us, in other words, the conflicts and wars in the Middle East; the financial problems in Europe; and the financial problems here in the U.S., where the government is at the brink of a shut down, unemployment continues to grow, and foreclosures continue to increase on a daily basis, I would say that many people find it very difficult to be optimistic. The reality is that all of these things combined cause the majority of people to develop a pessimistic attitude; in other words a defeatist attitude. And developing and nurturing a defeatist attitude is something that we can’t afford to do. We can’t develop and nurture a defeated mind, because to do so will stop us from seeing and appreciating the blessings that God pours out upon His people. And I don’t know about you, but I can tell you that I don’t want to miss a single blessing. But now the question that we must ask is: how can we avoid a state of defeat? This will be our theme for today, let’s now turn to the Word of God.

Psalm 1:1-6 - 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; 2But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. 3He 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. 4The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away. 5Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Something that all humans have in common is that everyone wants to be happy. All of us would love to be happy and care free, isn’t that so? However, what occurs with frequency is that the vast majority of people believe that to be happy they need to have more money, more possessions, cars, jewels, fine clothes, etc. If we conducted a survey and we asked different people what makes them happy, I'm sure that we would receive a variety of responses. We would receive different answers because a large portion of the world has heard about the word "delight or happiness"; however, they really don’t know what it is. In other words, they have never experienced the meaning of these words in their life. As I said at the beginning, there are a number of people that lead a defeated life. There are a number of people who though rich materially, they are in fact weak beggars. How can we prevent this from happening to us? Let’s begin answering our question by analyzing the meaning the word "delight." The word “delight” is defined as: “a high degree of gratification”[1]. And it’s a word synonymous with happiness and joy.

In the verses that we are exploring today we see that we are told: “…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; 2But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night…” As we can see, in this small portion of the scriptures we find two things that are of the utmost importance. In this small portion of the scriptures we find that there is a special blessing for all of those that remain faithful to God. This is something that our Lord further affirms in Luke 11:28 when we read: “…Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it...”

So here we find a blessing from God, but we also find what we must do to avoid developing a negative and/or pessimistic attitude. What must we do? The first thing that we have to do is to realize that we are not of this world. This is something that is well reflected in the words of the Lord as found in John 15:19 when we read: “…If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you…” Once we accept Christ as our King and Savior our citizenship changes. We are now citizens of God’s Kingdom. I don’t know about you, but I’m, very, very happy, to have changed my citizenship. I’m very, very happy, to have been saved and to now be part of His Kingdom. Tell the person sitting next to you: delight yourself in God’s Kingdom.