Tasty Fruit

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. 

I wrote out this whole chapter not only as a good introduction into the new Psalms devotional series that we are going to dive into, but all of this falls into what we are going through as a church in Matthew 5. I always have a hard time with the word ‘delight’ in this chapter. We are to ‘delight’ in the law of the LORD. We had many rules in my house growing up involving curfew, manners at the dinner table, not saying choice words around the house, having to mow the lawn and do yard work on Saturdays, etc. These were all ‘good’ rules to have but some of them were really challenging for me. Some of the laws that God put forth were challenging for people as well. We are not only to outwardly check off the laws in our fleshly obedience, but we are to delight in them and meditate on them day and night and develop really what it means to live out of our identity found in Christ. As Jesus puts in Matthew 5:27-28, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Don’t commit adultery (relatively straight forward and easy to follow). The challenging part is to not look at someone with lustful intent as you are then veering off to ‘adultery land’ in your heart. Jesus keeps pointing us back to our hearts and how I might not be a murderer as it says in Matthew 21, but I am still liable for judgment due to the numerous thoughts that I have had against my brothers in Christ in the past. 

We need to come to terms with the fact that we are sons and daughters of our heavenly Father and live out of that. We will mess up and we will waver and we will be ugly on the outside. Thank God that our Savior looks at our hearts and knows and cares for his children. As it says in verse 6, “for the LORD knows the way of the righteous.” 

To conclude, I challenge those of you who are reading this to be like the tree found in verse 3 of this chapter and bear fruit not so others can look at you and say, “Wow, he is a great looking tree,” but so that you can provide food for other people to sink their teeth into and say, “Why is your fruit so tasty.”

Pray this morning, afternoon, or night on this Monday that you will take strides in understanding who’s child you are and find delight in our Abba Father so that we can produce the fruit for His kingdom here on Earth. We are all uniquely made in his image and are his beloved children. 

Have a great week. 

Tim