Psalm 16:5-11

For Reading and Meditation:     Psalm 16:1-11

We continue expanding the theme we touched on yesterday - the danger of allowing our faith to become more man-centered than God-centered. Whenever I have the opportunity to address Christian counselors I try to urge them to put the glory of God before their client's well-being. A good deal of "Christian counseling"...

For Reading and Meditation:     Psalm 16:1-11

Having seen the importance of differentiating between goals and desires, we return to the thought that we can experience happiness only as a by-product. If we make obtaining happiness a goal, it eludes us like a will-o'-the-wisp, but if we give up the chase and hold it only as a desire, then it takes up residence in our...

For Reading and Meditation:     Mark 6:45-51

Yesterday we said that we all want to be happy - and rightly so. This is a deep-rooted instinct which God has built into us. But happiness is not something you make but something you receive. You cannot make happiness any more than you can make love. You can express love but you cannot make love. So it is with happiness....

For Reading and Meditation:     Acts 13:16-41

We spend one more day considering the implications arising from the rolling away of the stone. What did that rolled-away stone reveal? Well, follow the women into the tomb. It's just a large hole hewn in a rock. What do you see? Just "the place where they laid him" (Mark...

For Reading and Meditation:     Deuteronomy 32:28-38

We have been seeing that in the sanctuary the psalmist was reminded of the things he had forgotten, and thus his thinking was straightened out. There can be no real change in our personalities until there is a change in our thinking. Counselling that focuses only on changing behaviour and fails to emphasise the...

"For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither will Thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." Psalms 16:10

This word has it proper fulfillment in the LORD Jesus; but it applies also, with a variation, to all who are in Him. Our soul shall not be left in the separate state, and our body, though it see corruption, shall rise again. The general meaning, rather than the specific application, is that to which we would call our...

"I have set the LORD always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." Psalms 16:8

This is the way to live. With God always before us, we shall have the noblest companionship, the holiest example, the sweetest consolation, and the mightiest influence. This must be a resolute act of the mind. "I have set," and it must be maintained as a set and settled thing. Always to have an eye to the LORD's eye and an ear...

In the place where there is nothing to hinder the full perception of the glory of God, there is fullness of joy. The most we can do in this world is to get a conception, faint at the best, of beatific joy. As we perceive the presence of him who once became manifest in our nature, loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, we experience joy unspeakable; but we cannot describe our experience as fullness of joy, without declaring that the company of the ungodly is as blessed as that...

The habit of mind that is here indicated is very important, very rare, and very hard to be attained. Every Christian no doubt perceives, though more distinctly at certain times than at others, how exceedingly desirable it is that he should have a continual consciousness of the presence of the Lord, and what a grievous loss he is sustaining all the time that his Spirit forgets to realize that presence. And if he could attain unto this sublime habit of the soul by any single impulse and...

Psalms 16:11

"You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore!"

It is a wonderfully sweet song that sings all through this Psalm. It begins with fleeing to God for refuge, and ends with standing at God's right hand in glory at last! One strain of this song is enough for our present meditation. "You will show me the path of life...