Psalm 1

    Greetings to you all in the name of Christ Jesus!  I woke up this morning to some white stuff on the car and roof.  Yes, SNOW!  However, it only stuck on surface areas such as cars, leaves, and roofs.  The ground is still too warm to hold it.  I did get excited seeing it though.  Every Tuesday Pastor and I get together with two other LCMS pastors and three ELCA pastors for a text study on the upcoming lectionary readings.  It is a really good way to work through all angles of the text with that many guys asking questions and throwing out opinions.  This morning was my morning to lead the discussion, which worked out well since I will be preaching on the readings we were studying.  We always stay two weeks ahead so this mornings discussion was on the texts for All Saints Day on November 3rd, the next time I preach.  It went well and gave me some more things to consider as I begin to work on that sermon.
     I decided to spend a few minutes every day writing a short devotion on the psalms.  My plan is to work straight through all 150 psalms, then just keep going through them and picking out something new each time.  For longer psalms this will be definitely easier to pick out something new, for the shorter ones it will be more challenging but still doable.  The first week has gone by and I have done three, so I am not keeping up with the whole daily thing, but am going to try to do them as often as possible.  I wrote the first one on my phone actually while I was in the deer stand last week on a really windy night.  It was too windy for anything to be moving, and I didn't even take my bow with me.  I took my camera hoping to get some cool pics, but saw nothing.  So I spent some time writing this devotion.  I will try to post them every other day or so as I get them done.
This is on Psalm 1 looking specifically at verses 3 and 4.

            As I sit here in a tree, moving in the wind, I over look two corn fields both shining bright gold as the sun slowly sets, and both look like a rolling sea as the wind rushes over top causing the stocks to dance in unison.  The broad flat leaves caught by wind take random lift off into the air high above the fields, soaring as they float back down.  I realize this corn has produced its fruit.  It is ripe and ready for harvest as the giant ears weighted with numerous large kernels hang upside down.  Each stock has produced its fruit but now stands lifeless, done growing, and finished producing.  Firm stocks hold the plant upright but withered leaves allowed to be ripped off and blown away. 

            Psalm 1 verses 3 and 4 compares the righteous to the wicked using the imagery of plants.  The righteous are like trees that produce their fruit but their leaves do not wither.  Then it says the wicked are like the chaff blown away in the wind.  The author of the psalm is not saying that the wicked do not produce fruit. He is saying that the wicked after producing their fruit die, blown away by the wind because they are lifeless.  Non-believers (Non-Christians) can still be morally good people who produce fruit, caring for others, being kind and polite.  They can shine bright gold like those ripe corn fields but the difference is because they do not have a relationship with God after their fruit is done, they die.  The righteous, believers who do have a relationship with God, through the faith produce fruit, but then they still live like trees that produce fruit every year.  In exception though, they are a special kind of tree that their leaves never wither because they have life in Christ.  The comparison is not the fruit, but the life versus death.  Everyone produces fruit but only the righteous have life after the harvest.  These corn stocks will be gone as soon as the combine rolls through picking ears off, separating the kernels, shredding stocks, leaves, and cobs and throwing them out on the ground to be blown away by the wind, but the trees are harvested by plucking the fruit off and leaving the tree in tack to live on.  So are the wicked and righteous at harvest, the wicked will be lifeless and thrown into the fire, but the righteous will be transplanted by the river to live on in the presence of the one true God who made them righteous by His grace through faith.  

Blessings on your week!