Paul’s Psalm

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the path of sinners  Psalm 1:1

Stand – One last look at the first Psalm tells us the rest of the story.  Now we know that this psalm is directional.  But there is another thought here.  This first Psalm also sets the goal of God’s poetry.  If you don’t know where you’re going, any direction will get you there.  So, God makes sure we know where we are going.  We take the straight path toward His throne.  At the end of the road, we want to stand before Him.  To do that, we will have to stop listening to the call of the crooked and stop heading toward the goal of sinners.

The Hebrew here is ‘amadh.  It has a wide range of applications, but here it reminds us of the story of Joseph (Genesis 41:46) or Moses (Exodus 9:10).  This is royal court language.  When I stand in the presence of a king, I present myself as his subject.  David, the king of Israel, reminds us that our final goal is to stand before the King of glory as His servants.  Thousands of years later, Paul put this same thought in a letter to the Romans:  “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God” (Romans 14:10).  On the day that each of us stands before the real King, we will be asked to account for our direction and our goal.  For some, it will be a most terrible day.

The first Psalm stands (no pun intended) as a fork in the road of life.  In one direction is the highway of our God (Isaiah 40:3) whose end is the supper table of the Lamb.  In the other direction is the crooked road of self-deception whose end is the place of horrible darkness and despair.  You get to decide.  That’s the way it has always been.  “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse” (Deuteronomy 11:26).   

Until you determine the direction and the goal, Psalms is a closed book to you.  Each of us must come to the first Psalm first.  It is the gateway to all the rest.  From sorrow and tears to wonder and rejoicing, the Psalms carry us on the pathway of a person after God’s own heart.  But it all begins here, with the hope to stand one day in the presence of the King.