Author: Jody Green
The Word of God, “living and active,”(Heb. 4:12) is like streams of water that one can draw from to receive the light and life of God enriching your soul. Scripture enters a believer’s spirit as God’s breathe of life in an abiding relationship with Jesus Christ - our Savior, Mediator and High Priest. When God’s children read, study, meditate and delight in His Word, God reveals Himself to those with hearts of faith, ready to receive the Living Water; it washes away the sin-defilement of our flesh and the wicked world in which we live … much as Christ washed His disciples’ feet long ago.
Psalm 1 and 2 are gateway songs in the Hebrew Psaltry; the first Psalm addresses individuals while the second has nations, kings and rulers in view. Similar to all Hebrew wisdom-literature, two opposing types (e.g. of people, nations or ways of life) are represented. In Psalm 1, the righteous person wisely avoids the world’s seductive influence and builds his life on the “law of the LORD.” This is distinctly relational, not formulaic, for the righteous individual loves God’s Word and delights in ‘abiding’ in the streams of Scripture as God watches over His children’s way.
The way of the wicked, in contrast, leads to destruction; their demise is linked to a lack of rootedness. Without the water of God’s Word to feed, wash and enrich their souls, they are like chaff – blown away in life and unprepared for death’s impending judgment. Clearly, a line of demarcation is drawn between the fruitful righteous and the barren wicked. The Word of God is the life stream which determines the end-result; believers who draw from the Word, meditating day and night, produce fruit in every season of their life. Without time in Scripture, conformity to the world, rather than the transformation into Christlikeness, is far more likely to be our life-yield.
WHICH ‘WAY’ HAVE YOU CHOSEN?
Do you seek the LORD in His Word - reading, meditating, studying, and memorizing Scripture? Do you need increased faith? “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”(Rom. 10:17) Loving Christ and His Word, delighting in His Presence and living-out your faith in Spirit-filled ways … these are the fruit of “meditating day and night” on God’s breathed out Words. If believers dependently walk in God’s Spirit and diligently study God’s Word, they are conformed to Christlikeness from one degree to another, progressively over time.
PRAYER
“Dear LORD, ‘open my eyes that I might behold wondrous things from Your Law;’ (Ps. 119:18) illumine my mind, increase my love, faith and thirst for You. Make me like ‘a tree planted by the streams of water,’ (Ps. 1:3) who bears fruit for Your glory in every season of my life. Amen.