There he discovers inner sufficiency -- listen to this -- irrespective of his happenings. For his happiness does not come from the outside; his blessedness comes from the inside. A life of inner sufficiency, he is like a tree placed by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season. His life is all about regular productivity of things that really matter, of things that really count, of substance, and transcendent worth. “His leaf does not wither. There is a reliability about his life. He’s not up and down with his happenings.
There is a consistency, and I’ll tell you why. Because the end of the Psalm says, “The Lord watches over the way of the righteous,” and what governs his life is this overriding consideration that having committed his life to the Lord, the Lord has committed Himself to directing his path, and there’s a life of quiet tranquility. Whatever He does prospers. Be careful with that word “prosper,” because when we hear prosperity, we think money in the bank. That is not the meaning of the word here; it means the word “progress.” In other words, his life is going on from strength to strength. It is developing, it is maturing, it is a growing life, and that, of course, is talking about significant prosperity.
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Do you get the picture here?
Our Creator has endowed us with certain inalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but there’s a lot of unhappiness. The reason for it, I believe, is that people do not understand what true happiness is. They think they can find it in lifestyles which are morally wrong. They think they can feel fulfilled when all the time they know they’re not being what their Creator called them to be. They are settling into an attitude of “who cares in the end?”
What they could be doing is turning right around, and saying, “Lord, I want you to be Lord of my life! I want you to be Savior of my life. I want to live my life according to your precepts, and I want to live my life in your power. I want to live life fulfilling your purpose. I want to live my life and bring you pleasure.” Scripture says, “There’s a happy man.”
Let’s pray together: “Lord, we bow quietly in your presence, having sat under the ministry of your Word, and we know its searching power, and we know how it challenges our thinking. We know when the Spirit of God takes the Word home to our hearts, and pricks our conscience, enlightens our mind, touches our desires, and tells us this makes sense. We have a longing in our hearts to know more of what You are saying.
So our prayer is quite simple, ‘Lord, rescue us from the lifestyles that we gravitate toward because of the gravitational pull of our culture, so much of which is fundamentally wrong, and help us to have a love for your truth. Help us to have a desire to follow in the way everlasting.’ Forgive us our sin; wash away our guilt. Take away our hardness of heart. Give us new desires, new longings in the power of your Spirit, to change us from within. This is our prayer in the Name of Jesus our Lord. Amen!”
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Stuart Briscoe is Minister at Large of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin. He is a Contributing Editor to Preaching.
