INTRODUCTION

Part 3) Connect: Spiritual Practices

Basic spiritual disciplines have been utilized throughout history to foster our relationship with God

Journal

• Explore your fears and what’s behind them.
• Write about a relational conflict you are experiencing.
• Recall a significant reaction, conversation, or event.
• List out all that you are grateful for.

 Here are some tools to help you with the devotionals:

• How to journal? 
• What am I feeling?

Bible Text: Psalm 1

¹ Blessed is the man

    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

  nor stands in the way of sinners,

    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

² but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and on his law he meditates day and night.

³ He is like a tree

    planted by streams of water

  that yields its fruit in its season,

    and its leaf does not wither.

  In all that he does, he prospers.

⁴ The wicked are not so,

    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked will 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 wicked will perish.

Context & Commentary

Depending on context Blessed can mean under God’s blessing, happy or fulfilled, or intrinsically right. All three meanings suit here.

Motyer, J. A. (1994). The Psalms. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 489). Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.

Chaff is “husk and other materials separated from the kernel of grain during the threshing or winnowing process. It blew away in the wind (Hos. 13:3) or was burned up as worthless (Isa. 5:24; Luke 3:17).”

Brand, C., Draper, C., England, A., Bond, S., Clendenen, E. R., & Butler, T. C. (Eds.). (2003). Chaff. In Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (p. 276). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

Questions

1. What can we learn from the fact that the description of the blessed person begins with three things that he does not do?
2. Contrast the characteristics of a tree vs. chaff. How might these qualities be displayed in people’s lives?
3. How can I grow in my “delight” in God’s word?

Prayer