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.
Psalm 1:1–2 ESV.
Do you want Jesus Christ, the light of the world, to shine upon your everyday life and bless you in everything you do? Do you want to be the blessed man of Psalm 1? Well then, notice, as the Psalmist writes, that there are two steps to receiving this blessing.
- The Psalmist describes what the blessed man does not do, the sinful behavior that he abstains from. He “walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”
- He describes what the blessed man does, the godly behavior that he practices. His “delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
Not only does the blessed man avoid evil company and advice. He also seeks out good company and advice: God’s. He doesn’t just abstain from doing evil; he does good.
It isn’t enough to stop sinning; you have to start living righteously too. These two invariably go hand in hand because, whenever you empty your life of something, something else will come to take its place, always.
For instance, let’s say that you spend too much time browsing social media, so you would like to quit. One day, you do. Now what? You can’t just sit there and do nothing. If you try to, you’ll quickly get bored and restless. Eventually, you will find something else to do, anything else. Perhaps you will make yourself something to eat, yet again, or maybe you will turn on the TV, for the fourth time. Either way, you haven’t improved your life at all; you just did something else detrimental.
James describes the same parallel in his letter when he commands us to resist the devil and draw near God (James 4:7–8). You can’t stop at resisting the devil. You have to finish by drawing near to God. The goal is not to run away from the darkness; it is to run to the light.
Choose God
Thus, you cannot simply choose to do nothing; you have to do something. Therefore, the question is, what will that something be?
Make it God, the Lord, Jesus Christ. Spend your time together with him and learn everything you can from him. As the Psalmist writes, delight yourself in the law of the Lord and meditate on it, and do that, day and night. To empty your life of the darkness, you have to let the light in. Vanquish the shadows in your life by opening up the Scriptures, the window into the holy eternity that is always shining bright. Let the pure light of the Word into your house and behold, the dark sins recede.
