How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust

Psalm 40 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

God Sustains His Servant. A Psalm of David.

I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
² He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
³ He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear
And will trust in the Lord.

⁴ How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust,
And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.
⁵ Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done,
And Your thoughts toward us;
There is none to compare with You.
If I would declare and speak of them,
They would be too numerous to count.

⁶ Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired;
My ears You have opened;
Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.
⁷ Then I said, “Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
⁸ I delight to do Your will, O my God;
Your Law is within my heart.”

⁹ I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation;
Behold, I will not restrain my lips,
O Lord, You know.
¹⁰ I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation.

The psalmist says:  How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.  Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done,
and Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.  There are many voices speaking to us today, but are there any that we can trust? Can you trust the news media? They no longer report news without bias, instead they serve their own agenda. Truth matters little if at all to them. Surely, we cannot trust social media. Memes and sound bites cannot tell the whole truth. Can we trust politicians? Entertainers? Athletes? Even experts often serve their own agenda rather than the truth. In John 14:6 Jesus says:  "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”   Truth is part of the very nature and character of God. In Numbers 23:19 God speaking of Himself says:  "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” God is the one that we can trust.  God is also omniscient; He knows all. His thoughts toward us and about us, predate us. In Jeremiah 1:5 He says:  "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you.”  In Jeremiah 29:11 He says:  “I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”  There is none, no one who can compare to God.

The psalmist says:  Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired;
My ears You have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.  Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me.  I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart.”  In Psalm 50:10, God speaking through the psalmist says:  All the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills.   What could we possibly give Him then?  Romans 12:1-2 says:  I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.   Jesus died so that we could live. It is only right then that we should live for Him. In truth though, that is not a sacrifice on our part, but rather a blessing. In Deuteronomy 30:15-20 God says:  “See, 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. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days.”  In John 14:15;21;23-24: Jesus says:  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments… 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.”   Living for and in obedience to God and Christ is not a sacrifice. We get more than we could possibly give. We are blessed when we delight to do the will of God.

The psalmist says:  I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation; Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O Lord, You know.
I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have spoken of Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your  lovingkindness and Your truth from the great congregation.  As I said before, there are many voices speaking today. Will we, like the psalmist be a voice of truth? Will we proclaim God’s righteousness? His faithfulness and His salvation?  Will we speak the truth about the God of truth, that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life; that there are not many ways, but rather that He is the way to the Father and eternal life. He is the way to blessings rather than a curse. He is the way to life and prosperity rather than death.

The psalmist says:  I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry.  He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the Lord.   In truth, there are few if any of us who are patient today. We want instant results and instant gratification. It is God who is the patient one. 2 Peter 3:8-9 says:  Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.  Many people presume on the grace of God, thinking it’s okay to continue in sin. God’s grace though is not that He tolerates sin, it is that He gives us time to repent. He is patient, not wanting any to perish. If we will cry out to Him, He will lift us up.

How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.  Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward me; There is none to compare with You.  How blessed am I.  Amen.