The Way of the Righteous – The Law of God for Daily Meditation
The Way of the Righteous
The Law of God for Daily Meditation
1 Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
3 He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
4 The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the ungodly shall perish.
The righteousness of the Christian is the righteousness of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:21-26). We have no righteousness of our own, yet we require righteousness in order to enter the presence and know the favor of the Lord. Without righteousness, or holiness, no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). The Christian who is not concerned with righteousness, with growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing Him increase and his old man decrease, learning Jesus with transforming power and grace—that Christian is deceived, and is well-advised to examine himself, whether or not he is truly in the faith (2 Pet. 3:18; John 3:30; Eph. 4:17-24; 2 Cor. 13:5).
The righteousness of Christ, moreover, is the righteousness of God’s Law, which Jesus kept completely and commended to all His followers as the way to greatness in the Kingdom of God (Matt. 5:17-19). Yet even our ability to desire God’s Law, much less to understand and submit to it, even these are works of God’s Spirit, who teaches us the Law and enables us to do it as that which is pleasing to God (Ezek. 36:26, 27; Phil. 2:13).
Jesus does not set aside the Law, as Paul explained. Rather, by His perfect obedience and complete fulfillment of the Law, He establishes the Law as holy and righteous and good, and therefore a proper and most important resource for all who are called to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:31; Rom. 7:12; 1 John 2:1-6).
But for the Law to have its proper, sanctifying effect in our lives, it must be lodged in our souls—in our hearts, so that we love it; in our minds, so that we understand and contemplate it; and in our consciences, so that we prefer the way it marks out to any other course in life.
Meditating on the Law is an important means for lodging it in our souls, as Psalm 119 repeatedly emphasizes. Psalm 1 insists that the righteous person delights in the Law of God and meditates on it day and night. The affection (delight) leads to the discipline (meditates), which increases the affection, leads to understanding and submission, and transforms the life. And while this phrase—“day and night”—is a merism intended to indicate “all the time,” certainly a reliable way of achieving that degree of constancy is to devote a portion of our day, morning and evening, to meditating on the Law of God.
In our day, however, when for many Christians the Law has become, as one theologian insisted, “a dead and a useless thing,” we need to cultivate a taste for the Law, and we can do so through daily meditation. In this series, beginning tomorrow, we will work our way systematically through all the Law of God, providing a daily reading and guide to meditation, one for the morning, and one for the evening. At The Fellowship of Ailbe our calling is to help you grow in realizing the presence, promise, and power of the Kingdom of God; and hiding the Law of God deep within your soul is an important, no, an indispensable part of that process.
May the Lord use these daily readings to kindle in your soul delight for His Law and increasing love for Him and your neighbor.
The Fellowship of Ailbe website offers many Christian worldview resources and opportunities. Sign-up to receive our daily Bible study, ViewPoint, and T. M.’s thrice-weekly devotional letter, Crosfigell, featuring insights from Scripture and the saints of the Celtic Revival. Order a copy of T. M.’s book, Restore Us!, and join the many who are beginning to pray daily and in groups that God would bring revival, renewal, and awakening in our lifetime.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).
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