The Psalmist was viewing the condition of men around him.  He saw the wicked and their prosperity.  He was even tempted to be envious of them and it caused him to almost "slip" in the faith.  But then something marvelous changed all that.  In his confusion, he still knew in his heart that God had a plan and design for life.  Because of that abiding thought, he stopped his wondering, went to the Lord in prayer and there, alone with his Creator, he realized the true divine priorities.  God changed the direction of his thoughts, from thoughts of confusion to thoughts of understanding:  Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.  Before, he had been thinking foolishly and ignorantly (verse 22), but now he understood with wisdom.  He realized that the end of all the wicked was destruction, and the blessings of the righteous far outweigh any earthly treasures.  He knew where evil would lead the unsaved, but declared Nevertheless I am continually with thee.  No matter what riches others have and how little you may possess, have you reached the same conclusion as the psalmist?  It is sometimes confusing to see the seeming advantages that many unsaved folks appear to have.  They even seem to be able to get away with things that you know Christians would not.  If they have the same problems, often times they seem to be able to "finagle" their way out, even through deceit, while we must pay the consequences.  But never forget that there is a God in Heaven who sees and knows all.  He is the Rewarder of righteousness and the Judge of all evil.  Even before the reality of the final judgment, the present blessings of God in our hearts when we follow Him can not even be compared with the riches of the world.  Wealth can be gone in a moment of time, but the blessings of God are eternal.  All the Psalmist’s envying and thoughts of confusion were not what God wanted for him.  What God desired was victory and understanding in the life of His servant.  Viewing God’s glory and goodness, and remembering his own doubts, the writer called out: Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.  Next time you are tempted to want the things of the world, even to act like the world, think of the list of present "riches" in Christ that are yours and include those listed in this Psalm:

1)     The presence of Christ (I am continually with thee)

2)     God’s care (thou hast holden me by my right hand)

3)     God’s guidance, counsel and Divine Word (thou shalt guide me with thy counsel)

4)     Eternal security and a home in Heaven (and afterward receive me to glory)

These are the true riches we should desire and glory in!

What a marvelous privilege is ours to belong to the Lord of all Glory!  The Psalmist realized this and broke into a song of praise to the Lord.  Oh, how our hearts need to praise the Lord for His love and goodness to us every day.  To have true joy and victory in our lives, we need to really fall in love with the Lord!  As Christians, we say that we love God, but have we truly fallen totally in love with Him?  Think of how you felt when you first fell in love with your husband, during your "courting days."  Your every thought seemed to involve him, your every activity was planned around him and your very motives were influenced by your feelings for him.  That is exactly what should happen to us in relationship to our love for the Lord.  Perhaps we should make a check list of our love quotient for Christ:

1)     Does my every thought involve the Lord and are all those thoughts pleasing to Him?

2)     Do I plan my day based upon the Lord’s leading, putting Him first in all my activities?

3)     Are my motives always Christlike and filled with love and Holy Spirit direction?

4)     In my heart do I know that I am totally and completely in love with the Lord?

5)     Is my desire ever unto Christ?

What a change there would be in all our lives if we would have a consuming love for the Lord controlling our every moment.  Think of how wonderful Jesus is, how He is our All in All.  Read the verses again and then think deeply about them.  Think of the pearly gates and golden streets of Heaven.  Think of the angels and the loved ones there.  Think of all the beauty and joy and peace... then think of Jesus and say with the Psalmist: Whom have I in heaven but thee?  Jesus, blessed Jesus is above all!  Now think of your present life.  Think of all your loved ones, your family and friends.  Think of all your possessions, your home and treasures.  Think of all your ambitions and accomplishments...then think of Jesus and say again, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.  Our earthly life may fade and pass away, our heart and flesh can fail, but praise the Lord, God is the strength of our spiritual heart and our portion forever!  Fall in love with the Lord today as you never have before.  Take a few moments to commune with Him in prayer and tell Him just how very much you love Him!  We can be assured of a marvelous development in our lives.  As we fall more in love with the Lord, His love will become more increasing evident to us.  It is a love greater than words can tell.  O Lord, thank You for loving me!  Lord, I do love You, help my love to grow!

This verse reveals the true motivation for forgiveness that every Christian should have.  It also declares the true motivation that should be ours for guidance and deliverance.  The primary motivating factor should be for the glory of the name of the Lord!  Most of the time it seems that we want help and guidance solely for our own good.  Our cry is: "Lord, help me!"  Our cry often means just that, "help me," for my sake.  We plead, "Lord, deliver me out of this situation, so I won’t be in trouble."  We don’t even pause to consider what the will of the Lord might be and whether He has a divine plan for the situation.  Then there is our sin problem.  How often are we like the little child who says, "Mommy, I’m sorry.  Please don’t punish me."  Forgiveness was sought so that there would be no punishment.  We should seek forgiveness, not to escape the consequences of our actions, or even just to cleanse our hearts, but for the Lord’s name sake.  Our lives should in every way reflect honor to the Lord and bring praise to His name.  If our motivation for guidance and forgiveness was directed toward the Lord and His glory, it would probably mean that we would be more conscious of our actions to begin with.  We should constantly desire to be a cleansed vessel for the Lord’s filling, to be used by Him for His purposes.  We should not be so shallow as just to want to feel better when guilt weighs us down.  True conviction really comes when we view the Lord in all His glory and consider what great things He has done for us.  We should desire to be so purged from sin that we can be emptied of self and filled with the Spirit, to the result that our lives would bring glory to His name because we will be the Christlike person God can enable us to be:

    O to be like Thee, Blessed Redeemer, This is my constant longing and prayer.

    O to be like Thee, full of compassion, Loving, forgiving, tender and kind.

    O to be like Thee, while I am pleading, Pour out thy Spirit, fill with thy love.

    Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling, Fit me for life and heaven above.

    O to be like Thee! Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

    Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

    Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

                    (selected from Hymn: "O To Be Like Thee.")

As a child of God, we should want to be a fit dwelling place for His Spirit.  We should desire to honor and glorify His name in all that we say and do, in all that we ask or think.  Even each prayer for help, guidance and forgiveness should be motivated by our desire to magnify His name.  O Lord, help me not to be a selfish Christian, motivated by self interests in any area.  Help me to be Christ-centered in all that I do.  Help me to be like Thee, who came to do the will of the Father and to glorify His name.

Surely these are verses that many people have read and just passed on by without drinking in their richness.  They are also verses that must be studied to be understood.  If we want God’s blessings, we should acquaint ourselves with every verse that tells us how to obtain those blessings.  Our verses for today are contained on the list of such instructions.  There are deep and rich treasures to be found in the Word of God, but many times we must do a little digging to claim those treasures as our own.  In Bible college, I had a professor who used these verses as part of the text of a very inspiring lecture.  I never forgot the verses and also the great excitement I felt as I realized that there were so many hidden treasure verses in my Bible that I would have a lifetime of adventure ahead of me!  The first part of verse five is easy enough to understand, but then we must put on our thinking caps. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee.  When we find our strength in ourselves or in something of the world, we will not be the blessed person God wants us to be.  But the full blessings of God will begin to come when we realize that our strength must be from the Lord.  I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Philippians 4:13  This thought also carries the strong message: I can do nothing without the strengthening of Christ.  The Lord reminded Paul: My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. II Corinthians 12:9  We must abdicate all our feeble, self-striving strength to the Captain of our salvation, Who possesses all true strength.  In that way we can receive the blessedness of His strength working in and through us.  The second phrase, in whose heart are the ways of them, requires us to look back in Psalm 84 for the meaning.  There we find the them in verses three and four to be those that dwell close to the Lord, praising Him.  Like the sparrows of verse three, that built nests on the altar and made their abode with the Lord so that their young could grow up in His presence, so are the ways of the blessed man. Now, verse six requires some real research.  The margin of my Bible has an explanation that sheds some light: "Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs: Yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings."  The name Baca is from the Hebrew word bakah meaning to weep, to make lamentation with tears.  It was the name of a valley on the way to Jerusalem.  It presents to us a enduring spiritual illustration.  The blessed man of God during his life will sometimes pass through a valley of sorrow and trial.  Others may flounder in that valley, become discouraged or bitter, but the victorious Christian will make that valley a place of blessing.  What to some will be a dryness of soul, to them it will be an opportunity to drink from the well springs of God’s love.  They will dig deep in the floor of the valley to tap the springs of healing from the Lord.  When they leave, the rain that will fall for future travelers will fill the wells they have dug so that others may be refreshed.  The place of weeping will become a place of blessing.  What a beautiful and meaningful illustration from the Word of God.  Into each one of our lives there will be a valley of Baca, a place of weeping.  It will be our spiritual choice whether it will be a dry, barren and dark valley, or become a place where we dig deep into the wellsprings of God and travel through to the place of God’s blessings.  What we find in that valley will depend on how much we trust and love the Lord.  What we leave in that valley for others to drink from may determine their blessedness.  If our children see us give in to discouragement and bitterness, they too will stay in the valley of Baca.  But if they see us go through the time of weeping and allow our souls to be watered with God’s love, they will be strengthened.  Each one of us must enter such a valley.  Let us pray that we will not wither from thirst there but be like the man of Psalm 84, who went from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God. (verse 7)  In the valley of sorrow where the godless grow weak, the followers of the Lord will grow in strength.

Much of Hebrew poetry comes in a form known as parallelism, where items are compared side by side.  This verse contains some beautiful elements of that form of poetry.  The Psalmist tells us that the LORD God is [both] a sun and a shield for those that trust in Him.  Think of a bright sunny day and the wide open valleys of the land of Israel.  The sun is shining with great intensity, shedding life giving rays on the land, lighting the landscape so that all is visible to you, sending warmth deep inside.  Without that sun, all would surely perish.  But all alone in that wilderness of the land, away from areas of many trees or cool stone houses, you need a shield, a protector from enemies that might abound, as well as a shelter from the heat of the day.  Spiritually, God is that shield, as well as that sun.  He provides both our needs.  The light of God’s truth shines into our hearts and reveals sin.  In the heat of conviction, God sends the shield of His love and forgiveness and mercy.  We need both elements of God’s workings towards us, the sun and the shield.  His light will point out the dangers we face and expose errors and satanic opposition.  His shield of faith will enable us to stand in the evil day with strong protection.  His warmth will send healing to our bodies and our souls, while His graciousness will give us rest and peace as a shield during the healing.  The sunlight of His love will light fires of love and devotion within us, while His shield will go before us and enable us to witness in boldness knowing we are encompassed by His power.  Doesn’t the contemplation of these things just make you want to stand up and shout, "Glory, Halleluia!"  Then the Psalmist tells us that the LORD will give grace and glory.  Again, we could see this as a parallelism.  When we view the two terms in relationship to Christ, the mental picture is clear.  Grace has been defined by some as "God’s riches at Christ’s expense."  This is the picture of Christ, nailed to the cross, bruised and bleeding, for our redemption.  The Son of Glory humbling Himself to the form of mortal man so that He could die for us.  Christ’s glory is seen on the mountain top of the Transfiguration, on the glorious day of Resurrection, and in the mighty One seated in Heaven at the right hand of God the Father.  There we, as humble humans, will bow and give all glory to Him.  God’s grace and God’s glory, again in our lives they are intertwined.  God gives the grace to the penitent sinner who comes to Him and confesses that without Christ he is dead in his sins.  When that believing grace is bestowed, the lost sinner becomes a child of God, a joint heir with Christ, the possessor of the eternal glory of God living within, one alive from the dead, bound for Gloryland!  In our weaknesses, God gives grace to sustain us and lift us up.  When we accept that grace and let it work in our hearts, He gives us His strength and the glory of Christ can be seen in us!  In witnessing, God will give the faltering heart grace to speak for Him and clothe his words with glory to the listener.  In dying, God will grant us His special grace as believers and then take us home to Glory.  Truly God is our All in All, the Supplier of every need of our heart and life.  Therefore, we can say with loud and clear voices: No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.  If we want the full blessing of God in our life today, then we need to walk uprightly and do those things that are pleasing to Him.  In so doing, we will find the Lord to be our Alpha and Omega, our beginning and end, all that we need in our life.  Dear Lord, You are our Sun and Shield, our Grace and Glory.  Lord, help us to be all that we can be for You.

This verse holds forth a firm resolve for the believer.  Each one of us should fully claim this verse, realizing its implications.  The Psalmist decided that he would rather spend just one day in the courts of God than a thousand in the courts of sin and the world.  He declared that he would rather be a doorkeeper, standing just outside the entrance to Glory, than to dwell within the silken tents of wickedness.  He had decided that to be separated from sin and separated unto God was the most important thing in his life.  Some time ago, I viewed a television special on teen drug problems.  The host commentator was trying to talk to kids who had been involved in drugs and gotten off, in order to encourage other teens to stay away from drugs.  A second commentator, a famous teen television star, interrupted the talk show host.  He said that he was concerned that listening teens were perhaps getting the wrong message.  He had suddenly realized that the show was giving notoriety to teens who had chosen the wrong way.  While he thought it was noteworthy that they had gotten off of drugs, he knew that there was a better way that was not being focused on.  He then said that as a young person he had made up his mind to never dishonor his parents by being involved in drugs or related problems.  He had determined to stand firm in a resolve to do that which he had been taught was right, even if he had pressure applied upon him to do otherwise.  He told how this had helped him through all his teen years and that he was thankful for making that decision before temptation came.  Even though the others had gotten out of the problem, they had spent thousands of days in the tents of wickedness, because they had not had the resolve to never enter in the first place.  The young man encouraged those teens listening to take a stand to never dishonor their parents or themselves and avoid the problems that the others had been involved in, and the death and illnesses of those that were not represented on the show.  After all the psychological talk, this young man’s plea was the most effective.  We need the resolve that we will not enter into the courts of sin, but live as if we are already within the courts of the King.  The Scripture tells us that we are already seated in the Heavenlies.  Then how can we be so easily tempted to choose the tents of the wicked?  It would be like choosing to leave a bright and shining palace to live in the dregs of the worse hovel of the back alley filled with dirt and filth.  The tents may look silken on the outside, but within they are filled with darkness and despair.  The amazing thing is that we do not have to make the literal choice that the Psalmist mentioned, when he said he would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God.  We do not have to live just one day in God’s courts, we will be there forever and ever.  We do not have to just be a doorkeeper outside the house of God, but we will dwell close to the throne of our Redeemer and King.  There is a beautiful verse found in Revelation 3:12, recording the words of Jesus, who shows us how permanent the believers position in Heaven will be: Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out.  Not a doorkeeper, or a visitor for a day, but a permanent resident of the Heavenlies is the guarantee of our salvation.  There is no trade for that of the eternal, because we have already been granted the gift of His grace.  The trade here on earth is only for our benefit and for the benefit of His name.  We can trade unhappiness, sin and guilt for joy, peace and victory.  The stand of resolve and the trade of habitations are well worth it!  Next time you are tempted to enter the tents of wickedness, remember what lies inside and think of the beautiful courts of God where your Savior dwells.  In view of the contrast, making the right choice should be easier, the realization of God’s grace greater.

Before thinking about this one verse, pause for a moment and read Psalm 85 in its entirety.  The Psalmist was praising the Lord for restoring the nation Israel and giving revival and rejoicing to the people.  His confidence was that the Lord was going to give that which is good; and [that] our land shall yield her increase. (verse 12)  In that same confidence, he declares: Righteousness shall go before [the Lord]; and shall set us in the way of his steps.  The writer knew that when the people followed the Lord, that He would lead ahead in the path that they should walk in.  The same can be true in our lives.  When we come to God in confession of sin and decide to allow Him to revive us within, it is like the spiritual picture of Israel returning from backsliding or enemy domination.  After years of Israel’s disrespect of the law of the Lord, King Hezekiah was used to prompt a great revival in the land.  In a "post" or official letter that the king sent throughout all the land were these words, which should speak to our hearts today: Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the LORD God...and he will return to the remnant of you...for if ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion...for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if ye return unto him. II Chronicles 30:6 and 9  God sends His post or letter to our hearts today, urging us to have the blessings of a full turning to the ways of righteousness.  When Israel came back to the Lord, He always restored them to their land, gave them godly leadership, peace and prosperity.  When we come to the Lord for the fullness of His blessings and seek to be revived within, He will give us Holy Spirit leadership, restore to us the fullness of His blessings, grant us peace within and new prosperity in our lives, both spiritually and often physically.  When we follow Christ, we are following righteousness, for He is the Lord our Righteousness.  One of my favorite New Testament Scriptures is found in I John 2:6: He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.  If we say that we are Christians and that we abide in Christ, we ought to walk even as Christ walked.  That verse should help us to think about everything that we do.  It is reassuring to know that as Spirit indwelt believers we do not have to walk in our own strength.  Psalm 85:13 gives us the assurance that the Lord will be our Enabler, all we have to do is follow.  He will walk the pathway before us, sending forth His righteousness to light the way, and then He will set us in the way of His steps!  He will not only enable us, but He will take us up in His hands and place our very feet in the steps which He has ordained for us to walk in, if we have placed our lives totally in His hands.  His righteousness will shine before Him, illuminating the path, showing us the steps wherein we should walk.  "Follow, follow, I will follow Jesus, Anywhere, everywhere, I will follow on!"  We can follow, because He will lead the way.

    Sweetly, Lord, have we heard Thee calling, "Come follow Me!"

    And we see where Thy footprints falling Lead us to Thee.

    Footprints of Jesus, that make the pathway glow!

    We will follow the steps of Jesus where’er they go!

    When we walk with the Lord in the Light of His Word

    What a glory He sheds on our way!

    While we do His goodwill, He abides with us still,

    And with all who will trust and obey.

    Trust and obey, for there’s no other way,

    To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.

    Take up thy cross and Follow Me, I heard my Master say;

    I gave My life to ransom thee, Surrender your all today.

    Wherever He leads I’ll go,...Wherever He leads I’ll go,...

    I’ll follow my Christ who loves me so, Wherever He leads I’ll go.

        (chosen from the hymns: "Footprints of Jesus," "Trust and Obey" and "Wherever He Leads I’ll Go")