Select a Ring of Truth daily devotion online
Ring of Truth provides 366 daily ‘proofs’ that the Bible is consistent throughout from Genesis to Revelation, and relevant for our lives today!
Select the date to display the devotion for:
Psalm 1:2
But his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and on His Law he meditates day and night.
Where is your delight?
As we come to the Psalms, I’m conscious there are so many that would be great to look at because they invariably strike a chord with our own emotions. The Psalms are very much like our hymns and songs, and rather than discarding them as ancient poetry, we would do well to know as many as possible off by heart.
This is also in the back of my mind as I select the ones for this book. As each virtually stands on its own, it creates a challenge because I don’t wish to dismiss some as irrelevant but rather highlight the ones that have a particular significance to me.
“Blessed is the man who does not WALK in the counsel of the wicked or STAND in the way of sinners or SIT in the seat of mockers” (v 1).
Walk, stand, sit. The Christian life is a walk with Jesus - a progressive pilgrimage. The Psalmist knew that. He knew that you can turn a moving object. It is open to course correction but one that is stationary is much harder to turn because you have to get it moving first.
However, the writer also knows that the enemy is subtle. In order to stop Christians, he doesn’t make an all-out attack because he knows he would lose every time - even death is merely a promotion for them. No, he succeeds in a different way. He slows us down. Paul says, “I have finished the race” (2 Timothy 4:7). The writer to the Hebrews says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).
The enemy entices us to walk, to slow us down, and to cloud our vision. Pleasures, possessions, promises, promotion, prosperity and pressures of work are all ‘offered’ to us in an attempt to slow us down and so many get diverted by them. We see others prospering with these things and get attracted by their ‘sales talk’ and promotion.
Having slowed us down, we are then more susceptible to standing. We spend time with others who have made these things their goals, and start copying their lifestyle and adopting their values, so that, before we know it, we are engulfed by ambition, power, self-centredness, divorce, adultery, independence, and deception. The next ‘step’ is natural. We socialise with like-minded people and end up in alcoholism, drugs, prostitution, and mocking God.
But there is an antidote. The healthy person “delights in the Law of the Lord and on His Law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2). It is fun, healthy and fulfilling. That is what God told Joshua to do (see Joshua 1:8) and he became probably the greatest army commander that ever lived and led the people in to possess the Promised Land. Not a bad example.
“He is like a tree planted by streams of water” (1:3). Not a temporary shower - a constant life-giving stream, which enables us to be a constant blessing and example to others. The wicked will perish sooner or later. But God knows the righteous and has an ongoing intimate relationship with them.
Which way will you choose? Great but…
Beware of slowing down.
Download the above Ring of Truth devotion as a PDF.
Previous Day's Devotion | Next Day's Devotion
To subscribe to this daily devotion by email visit our Daily Email subscription page.
