Daily Devotional

A Ministry of the Kerwin Baptist Church

July 17, 2018

by Pastor Hawtree

I AM PERSUADED THAT HE IS ABLE:

TO BLESS THE RIGHTEOUS

Psalm 5:11 But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. 12 For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

Apparently, we as God’s children, are supposed to be a little joyful. We are told that those who have put there trust in Jesus should “rejoice”. We are told that they should even “shout for joy”. We are told anyone that God has ever defended, protected, or shielded should “shout for joy”. We are told anyone that has learned to love the name of the Lord should be full of joy. I don’t know about you, but that is a lot of joy that is supposed to be in our life. The average Christian does not display near that much joy. Everything in our life needs to be going exactly like we want it for us to have joy. There must be no problems, no conflicts, and no surprises for joy to be “shouted” in our life. The average church is a “house of complaining”, or a “house of whining”, instead of being a “house of prayer”.

According to this passage, our joy should be present because of our relationship with the Lord, not because of favorable circumstances. Now verse twelve tells us the the Lord “blesses” the righteous, and literally compasses us with favour. It means that God’s favor goes before us, like we were holding a shield, everywhere we go. Wow! These are all wonderful and undeserved blessings from our Heavenly Father. However, I find that the joy that is discussed in these verses was there before the blessings were mentioned. Our joy should come from the Lord, not from blessings. We should not need all the “perks” in order for us to be joyful. We should be shouting for joy before the blessings start rolling in.

Yes, God blesses the righteous. We are not the “righteous” because of our accomplishments, but because when we got saved, we put on the “righteousness of God”. Yes, the favor of God surrounds us. All these things are wonderful, but our rejoicing should come from the fact that God loves us, and saved us. That should be enough for us to “shout for joy”.