Psalm 1 – True Happiness

“The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.” Robert Louis Stevenson

But are we? How happy are kings? To what extent can we control happiness?

Circumstances, make up, background, mood We will have eternal happiness! What about this life? 1 Cor 15:19, Ps 3, 5, 10

Happiness must not be our chief aim - but if we can move towards it legitimately, we should!

Happiness at the expense of God and others ends in tragedy anyway (Gal 6 7:10)

Who are the Wicked? v1

Psalm 1 contrasts the righteous and the wicked Who are the wicked?

Particularly bad people? Non-believers? Believers who don’t avail of God’s resources? Anyone who is a bad influence? Anyone who put’s God out of the picture?

Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold (Rom 12:2) 1 Jn 2:15

Walk, stand, sit – progression towards allegiance to wicked

Jesus stands at the door and knocks – we don’t answer

Delighted - v2

How can we develop a greater appetite for God’s word? (We have more of it now than at that time.)

What dominates our thought life (Mt 12:44, 2 Cor 10 4-6)

Do we know how to meditate? To reflect on – to contemplate Good at worrying! Good at dwelling on injustices! Good at coveting!

We need to make the world grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace

C.S.Lewis on Faith

"Now Faith …is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods…

Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable. This rebellion of your moods against your real self is going to come anyway. That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods 'where they get off', you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist, but just a creature dithering to and fro, with its beliefs really dependent on the weather and the state of its digestion.

Consequently one must train the habit of Faith.”

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Tree by Streams of Living Water v3

Think of Rev 22 again. Trees look beautiful and provide fruit and much else. A tree needs light, water, roots, nourishment Are we more like fake trees, cut flowers, tumbleweeds? We must be:

Separated from the world Saturated by the word

The law is all about God. To bear the fruit of the Spirit, we must

allow the Spirit to work in us and through us Gal 5:19-25

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Not So the Wicked

Chaff is utterly useless for anything. They will have no part in the New Heaven and New Earth. They do no good in this world – unless God uses them for

his purposes despite themselves– (Rom 9:17) Will not stand in the judgment

Some try to “run with the hare and hunt with the hounds” The LORD will separate them out Matt 3:12

LORD watches over the way of the righteous God declares us righteous when we believe. God makes us more righteous throughout our lives. We will be righteous in the heaven.

To perish isn’t to fade into non-existence – see Revelation!