February 11, 2021 -- Psalm 1:1-4 -- A warning and an invitation

Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
4 The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Psalm 1:1-4 English Standard Version

How much time do you spend planning the next movie channel series you are going to watch? You have seen adverts for it and you have been thinking about binge watching. You really don’t have a block of time like that, in fact, other things are unattended, sleep is pushed too deep into the night in order to imbibe in the obsession. Perhaps it is not even planned, the series just sort of falls into your lap and you are hooked.

The Psalmist is describing the Word of God in this way. It is something he cannot get enough of. It consumes his thinking. When he is not actively reading the Word of God, he is thinking about it. It replenishes his enthusiasm for the task at hand, knowing once this is done, he will be able to drink deeply of the Word of God. Jesus described Himself as Living Water (John 4). His Word and His refreshing presence well up within the believer such that all else fades from prominence and urgency.

Perhaps you do not experience the presence of the LORD in this way? Perhaps you find the Word dry and boring? That is the experience of chaff—the outer husk of wheat that is beaten off the wheat and when the wheat and chaff are tossed up into the air, the wind carries away the near weightless chaff into oblivion and the weighted wheat falls into a pile at the feet of the Master Who is threshing His wheat.

This Psalm is both a warning and an invitation. Examine your life. If you are not finding delight in the Word of God—something is seriously wrong with your life. The chaff, those who love mockers, sinners and scoffers will find one day that they are driven away from the Word and their fall and destruction are sure. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time to return to your first love. Ask the Spirit of God to change you from the inside-out so that the Word takes its rightful place in your heart and mind. Cut out the nonsense you are filling your mind with now so that having removed the detritus of your mind, there is room for delight in the Word and more importantly, there is room for the adoration of the Person Jesus.

The invitation. Read the Word. Study it until your mind’s eye and your faith see Jesus in dreadful Majesty. Spend time with it until you get to know the main characters, the plot lines, the story arcs and it moves from being unfamiliar to something that fills your heart with joy and blessedness. Pray for the Spirit of God to renew your delight in the Word so that when your assigned time for reading it is done, you find you are still lingering, squeezing out some more time so that you can drink in all the delights of it. You find yourself thinking about Jesus and His glories and this overshadows your day and fills your nights. The promise pictured in this Psalm is that those who live in this way will find their lives yielding fruitfulness and abundance—even when the rest of the world is in drought and in a famine for hearing the Word of the LORD—your heart, soul, and mind are being constantly replenished.

  O God the Holy Spirit,

Thou who dost proceed from the Father and the Son,

have mercy on me.

When thou didst first hover over chaos,

order came to birth ,beauty robed the world, fruitfulness sprang forth.

Move, I pray thee, upon my disordered heart;

Take away the infirmities of unruly desires and hateful lusts;

Lift the mists and darkness of unbelief;

Brighten my soul with the pure light of truth;

Make it fragrant as the garden of paradise, rich with every goodly fruit,

beautiful with heavenly grace, radiant with rays of divine light.

Fulfil in me the glory of thy divine  offices;

Be my comforter, light, guide, sanctifier;

Take of the things of Christ and show them to my soul;

Through thee may I daily learn more of his love, grace, compassion,

faithfulness, beauty…

The Valley of Vision “The Spirit’s Word”

https://youtu.be/8C3WQ1G1Uso