Blessed in Christ

Psalm 112 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Prosperity of the One Who Fears the Lord.

Praise the Lord!
How blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who greatly delights in His commandments.
² His descendants will be mighty on earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed.
³ Wealth and riches are in his house,
And his righteousness endures forever.
⁴ Light arises in the darkness for the upright;
He is gracious and compassionate and righteous.
⁵ It is well with the man who is gracious and lends;
He will maintain his cause in judgment.
⁶ For he will never be shaken;
The righteous will be remembered forever.

⁷ He will not fear evil tidings;
His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
⁸ His heart is upheld, he will not fear,
Until he looks with satisfaction on his adversaries.
⁹ He has given freely to the poor,
His righteousness endures forever;
His horn will be exalted in honor.

¹⁰ The wicked will see it and be vexed,
He will gnash his teeth and melt away;
The desire of the wicked will perish.

The psalmist begins saying:  Praise the Lord! How blessed is the man who fears the Lord, Who greatly delights in His commandments.  In Deuteronomy 30:15-16 God said:  I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.   It is love and delight which are to be the motivation for our obedience. It is not that we obey out of fear, but rather in love. In John 14:15 Jesus says:  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” In verses 16-27 Jesus describes the blessing that those who love and keep His commandments will receive. He says:  “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another ^[a]Helper, that He may be with you forever;  that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him…If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”   We are blessed with the Holy Spirit; with guidance, and with the presence and the peace of Christ.

The psalmist says:  The generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, And his righteousness endures forever.  Light arises in the darkness for the upright; He is gracious, compassionate and righteous.   Obedience to God’s word also causes us to be blessed in that His word calls us to righteousness and His presence causes us to be righteous. In John 8:12 Jesus says:  “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”  In John 10:10 He says:  “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  So, as the psalmist says, we have both light and abundance in Christ. God Himself is gracious and compassionate. He is righeous. Several times in Leviticus, God’s commandments, as in Leviticus11:44-45, He says:  I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy… For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.          2 Corinthians 5:21 says:  He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.   What no one could do on their own, be holy and righteous as God, God did for us through Christ. Romans 5:8 says: God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  1 John 4:19 says:  We love, because He first loved us.  So, our obedience, in love, is our response to His love for us and we are blessed with the righteousness of Christ, even though we ourselves were unrighteous.

The psalmist says:  It is well with the man who is gracious and lends; He will maintain his cause in judgment. For he will never be shaken; The righteous will be remembered forever.   The blessings of God go beyond this natural finite life. The righteous will be remebered forever. We are blessed, not only in this life, but also with eternal life in Christ. Our judgment is not based on our own righteousness, but on His. That is the ultimate blessing, the ultimate peace and comfort we have in Christ. In John 16:33 Jesus says:  “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”   In 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 it says:  Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on ^]the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.   Through Christ, we too have overcome the world. We have overcome sin and death. We no longer have immorality, we have immortality.

Ephesians 1:3 says:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Thank You heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ and precious Holy Spirit, I am blessed by Your love. May my response to Your love also be a blessing to You.   Amen.