Pondering the Psalms - Psalm 1

Each Sunday I am going to choose a Psalm and write down some brief thoughts on it.


Today is appropriately looking at Psalm 1 for our first week of this series.


This is one of my favourite Psalms probably helped by the fact that there was a song based on it that we used to sing many years ago and that has helped me to learn some of the verses.


For me this Psalm falls into three parts:

V. 1-3
the man who is blessed

V. 4-5
the ungodly man

V. 6
the comparison of the end of the two men


The Man who is Blessed.
Firstly we know he is blessed because of what he does not do.
Secondly we know he is blessed by what he does.
Thirdly we see what the blessing will be like - good foundation, strength, fruitfulness, good life.


The Ungodly Man.
Firstly we know he is the opposite to the blessed man.
Secondly we know that his future is not good - not with God.


The End of the Two Men.
God respects and recognizes the Blessed man.
The Ungodly man will perish.

There is no sugar coating - we are one or the other and it is not decided by man but by God.

Hence it should be God we are honouring in life and not trying to please man or be liberal or go with the times or be swayed by the majority or indeed be goaded into compromise by the minority.

And how so we know what is of God and what is not of God?
By delighting in God's Word and thinking on it all the time so we can use it as our guide & measuring rod.

It is important we know what the definition of the ungodly is 
but 
the one we need to focus on is the man who is blessed.

We need to avoid the pitfalls 
but 
most importantly 
we need to turn ourselves to the word of God.