The Person Who Is a Blessing

12/12/2011 7:21:28 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  Remainder of Psalm 1

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                  Reference:  Psalm 1:3-6

            Message of the verses:  In today’s SD we will look at verse three of Psalm 1.  We must look at how the outline of this Psalm is presented from yesterday’s SD.  “While the Psalm depicts two ways, it actually describes three different persons and how they relate to the blessing of the Lord.”  (Quote from Warren Wiersbe)

            The Person Who Is a Blessing (v-3):  “3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.”  (NASB)

            In the twelfth chapter of the book of Genesis we see the call of Abram from the Lord and the first three verses of Genesis twelve are very familiar verses.  We want to look at just the second verse in order to see that Abram will be a blessing to others similar to the person of the third verse of Psalm 1:  “And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing.”

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “If the blessing stays with us, then the gifts become more important than the Giver, and this is idolatry.  We are to become channels of God’s blessing to others.  It’s a joy to receive a blessing but an even greater joy to be a blessing.  ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”  (Acts 20:35)

            We see some word pictures in this third verse of Psalm one.  We see the word tree and the person who receives God’s blessing and then channels them to others is like this tree, and the tree in verse three is planted by a stream of water so that its roots can receive the water it needs to continue to grow and prosper as a fully mature tree.  The tree can then produce fruit and that fruit will be the blessings that will be given to others.

            There are a few times in Scripture that speaks of trees and in Daniel chapter four and Ezekiel chapter 17:24 along with Matthew 13:32 we see the tree as a symbol of a kingdom.  We can see the tree symbolizing as an individual in Psalm 52:8; 92:12-14; Proverbs 11:30; Isaiah 44:4 and 58:11; Jeremiah 17:5-8; Matthew 7:15-23. 

            In the book of Numbers 24:5-6 we see Balaam bringing a blessing on the children of Israel and this is how he pictures them:  “5  How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel! 6  "Like valleys that stretch out, Like gardens beside the river, Like aloes planted by the LORD, Like cedars beside the waters.”  We now see the next word picture and that is a river, and as mentioned this river in verse three is the means of growth for the tree that produces fruit which are the blessings of the tree.  Now this is a reminder of John 15:1-9:  “1 ¶  "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2  "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3  "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4  "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5  "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6  "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. 7  "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8  "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.9  "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.’”

            Psalm 1:3 is a great picture of a person who is remaining in the vine, and remaining is the same as abiding in the vine.  This person is receiving their spiritual blessings from the Word of God, from fellowship with others, from meditating on the Word of God because they delight in the Word of God and then they are passing this fruit onto others as the Holy Spirit brings opportunity to be a blessing to others because they are abiding or remaining in the vine.  I have mentioned this section of Scripture in earlier SD’s so it should be somewhat familiar.  I will put onto a separate blog a letter that I wrote to a friend of mine while living in Hawaii last summer that will help to explain more fully what I learned from the study of John 15 about the vine and the branches.

            I wish to draw one more quote from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on Psalm 1 at this time:  “The godly person described in verses 1-3 is surely a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to John 14:6 is the way (v. 1), and the life (v.3).”  Dr. Wiersbe has a great way of finding the Lord Jesus Christ in many of the Scriptures that we study.  This reminds me of a favorite passage of Scripture that of Luke 24 when Jesus is walking with some friends along the road to Emmaus and the friends of Jesus were prevented from know the resurrected Lord.  Jesus began to explain to them about how the Messiah is seen in the OT as the traveled along together.  There are many pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ in the OT and that is reason enough to study it so that we can find these jewels and then pass them on to others so we can be a blessing to them.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I desire to love the Giver of the gifts more than the gifts and therefore pass on the blessing that I receive from the Lord to others who are in need of them.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.      I use to listen to a radio Pastor who is now with the Lord and he would always say at the end of his message, right before he would sign off with these words:  “Walk with the King today and be a blessing.”

2.      Continue to learn contentment.

12/12/2011 8:13:08 AM