Our Greatest Portion

 Meditation on Psalm 16:5-6

“The LORD is my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”

Once there was a young boy of a very wealthy man.  He had two older sisters and an older brother.  One day his father pulled all of them into the living room and sat them down.  “My children,” he said, “today, I’m going to divide up my possessions and give you what will be your future inheritance.”

“As long as it is fair.”  The eldest son said.

“I will make it fair.  I have put in this hat four pieces of paper.  I will draw them out and tell you what is yours.”

“How are you going to divide up the inheritance?”  The eldest girl answered.

“You will see.”  The father replied.  “We will begin with the oldest and come to the youngest.”  The father reached his strong hand into the hat and pulled out a piece of paper.  He unrolled it and said, “Son, you will receive all of the 1000 acres of land.  The mountains, the waterfall by Fish Cauldron, the forests and the fields are all yours.  You own all my land except for the ten acres around the house and the fields by the stables.  Explore it.  Know it.  Love it.” 

The younger boy watched as his older brother hugged his father, thanked him and then ran off to explore the wild country.  He was surprised to see how his older brother ran out the door without finding out how the rest of the property was divided up.  A jealous thought stole through his mind: “I wish I would’ve got the land.  I loved when I walked with father through the woods and fished beside him in the boat.”     

“Now it’s your turn,” father said to his eldest daughter.  He pulled out another piece of paper and unfolded it.  He smiled.  “This will suit you well.  You will receive the mansion and the ten acres surrounding it, including the orchards.  You have always loved house and home.  You have always cooked with your mother and the other servants.  Everything in the house is yours except for the bedrooms of your brothers and sister.  You will need to care for them until they leave home.  Care for it.  Love it.  Be hospitable with it.”

The younger boy watched his sister hug his father, thank him and then ran off into another room.  He could hear her tell the good news to all the servants she met.  The boy thought: “Wow.  Father is very generous.”  But he also thought: “I wish I would’ve gotten the house.  There are so many good memories about this place.  I remember wrestling with father right here in the living room, playing games with him in the dining room and picking apples with him in the orchard.”

The father pulled out a third piece of paper and unfolded it.  Again he smiled.  “As I thought,” he said. “You my dearest little girl will receive the stables, the horses and all the pasturelands surrounding them.  I am glad you got them because I’ve often seen you ride them after school.  Though we have servants who muck the stalls, feed them and groom them, you are always out there caring for them.  They are now yours—all of them.  Care for the horses.  Learn to ride them better.  Love them.”

The girl squealed with delight and threw her arms around her father.  “You will come and ride with me every once in awhile?  Won’t you?”

“Yes.  Of course I will.”  Father assured her.

As his sister ran off to tell everyone the good news, the little boy thought: “My sister is so lucky.  She got all the horses and father is even going to ride with her.  I wonder what’s left for me.”   

His father noticed a tear well up in his son’s eyes.  “What is wrong, my son?”

“You gave my brother the land so he could climb mountains and swim in lakes.  You gave my sisters the house and the horses.  There is nothing left for me.

The father scooped him up in his arms and wiped away his tear.  “My dear little son, your older brother and sisters love me but they are often busy doing other things.  Though I drew pieces of paper out of the hat, I knew which ones to pick for each of my children.  Your brother loves the land.  Sometimes I go with him but often he goes alone.  Your older sister loves home.  She loves to cook and be hospitable.  You other sister loves the horses.  Though I will ride with her sometimes, she is always by the stables.”

“But what about me?  What do I get?”

“I give you myself.  Walk with me, laugh with me, talk with me and learn from me.  Know my strength, my joy, my wisdom and my love.  For when you have me, you will have much more then anyone else.”  His father said.

Then the boy understood that he received the greatest gift of all: his father.  In the days to come he would learn of his father’s strength to hike through forests and over mountains.  He would learn of his father’s joy as he would wrestle with him on the floor and have fun with him.  He would learn of his father’s wisdom in the way to live life.  But for now, he rested in his father’s love for him.  Of all that his father gave away, the youngest boy received the greatest portion.

This is what the author of Psalm 16 meant when he wrote: “The LORD is my portion and my cup.  You make my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” 

God has chosen to give himself to us.  He is the greatest gift any of us could receive.  When I fully understand that the Lord God, the Creator of the galaxies and the earth, has given himself to me, then I am truly richer then Bill Gates and all the people on this earth. I learn to be content with everything I have.  Whether I have much or little, the Lord is more than enough for me. 

This reminds me of a contemporary Christian songwriter and singer, Chris Tomlin, who wrote a song entitled ‘Enough.’  The chorus is fitting for this verse:

“All of you is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst and every need. 

You satisfy me with your love, and all I have in You is more than enough.” 

When I have the Lord, then ‘the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.’     

The Danger of Idolatry

Meditation on Psalm 16:4

“Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.  I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips.” 

In comparison to the ‘holy people in the land,’ the author of this Psalm recognizes the danger of idolatry: “Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.”

Why will they suffer?

In the very beginning God created man and woman in his image and in his likeness.  Humanity is or rather was supposed to reflect and represent God upon this earth.  When a man serves, obeys and worships the Lord, he is a reflected image of God towards all creation including other people.  However, when sin entered into the human race though the disobedience of the one command, the image of God within us was marred and twisted.  It was no longer a clear reflection or image of who God is.   

When a person worships another god and bows down to an idol, it further defiles the image of God within them and will ultimately lead to that person’s destruction.  The first two commandments instruct us not to have any other gods before the Lord or to make any graven images (idols).  The reason the Lord God gives is this: “for I…am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents…but showing love to a thousand generations.”  God is jealous of us.  He created us in his image and likeness.  He fashioned us in our mother’s womb and thus owns us.  When a person bows down to an idol to worship it or bows down to another god such as television, the internet or work or a hobby, or anything else that takes God’s place, God is jealous of us.

How will those who hasten after other gods suffer? 

1) Idolaters become like what they worship.  Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb, ‘You are what you eat.’  This is a metaphorically true statement.  If a man decides to eat fast food for a year, he will most likely begin to look like a hamburger.  He will be a little sluggish and feel sick to his stomach a lot of times.  If a man, however, decides to eat healthy then he will look and feel good. 

On a more important note, a person becomes like what he or she worships.  In comparison to the Lord God, the author of Psalm 115 says, “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands…those who make them will be like them, and so will all trust in them” (4-8).   People who make and trust in idols become like them.  In a couple other places in the Bible God says, “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless” (2 Kings 17:15; Jeremiah 2:5).  If a man bows down to another god or goddess, he will become like the idol—ignorant and worthless.  All we have to do is consider the influence of television in this generation to see this take place.  Television has portrayed violence, drugs and sexual immorality as cultural norms.  The generation that has grown up ‘in front of’ the television is becoming like what they see.

2) Idolatry defiles a person and land.  The Lord cries out through Ezekiel 20:31 “you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day” (20:31) and also informs them of their judgment: “So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols” (36:18).  The word defiles simply means to make ‘unclean’ or perhaps we could say to make dirty.  Perhaps the reason why idolatry pollutes a man, woman or land is because it further stains and makes unclean the image of God in a person or nation’s life.  The person becomes less and less like the true God and more and more like the vile image he or she worships. 

3) Idol worshipers are put to shame.  The Lord warns the idolaters through Isaiah, “But those who trust in idols, who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back in utter shame” (42:17).  A person who runs after other gods and idols will ultimately be put to shame.  Another god or goddess cannot speak, listen, reason or instruct.  All idols will one day fail.  Compare this with the promise found in Romans 10:11 “Anyone who believes in him (the Lord) will never be put to shame.”

4) Idolaters exchange the glory of God for images, something considerably less then God.  God says through Jeremiah, “Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols” (2:11).  This is what Paul picks up in Romans 1:21-23. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of God for images.”

Let me give an illustration of this: Suppose a husband buys a doll that looks something like his wife.  Instead of spending time with his wife and developing a rich relationship with her, he spends all his time with this doll.  He has exchanged the glory of his wife in all her beauty and love for something that cannot respond to his devotion to her.  Or vice versa, suppose a wife buys a doll that looks like her husband and spends time with it.  The husband would grow jealous and want his wife to spend time with him, not the doll.  In a small way, this is what humans have done to God.  God is so much greater, more glorious and more wonderful then we can possibly imagine and people settle for so much less. 

5) Finally, idolaters are punished.  In just a few verses of the Bible, God warn us of the punishment decreed against idolaters: God says through Ezekiel about idolaters, “I will set my face against them and make them an example and a byword.  I will remove them from my people” (14:8).  Paul warns God’s people in several letters about idolatry: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters…will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9).  “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.  Because of these, the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5-6). The final book of the Bible condemns all idolaters to the Lake of Fire.  “But the cowardly…the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).  This is the ultimate doom and suffering for those who seek after other gods.

The author of this Psalm recognized that idolaters suffer; therefore, he refuses to ‘pour out libations of blood’ to another god or goddess.  This was simply a ritual act of worship in the ancient days.  He goes so far as to refuse to mention the names of other gods or goddesses on his lips. He wanted nothing to do them because he recognized those who run after them suffer more and more. 

Let all who read this (including myself) take heed lest we put something else in front of the Lord our God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth!

A Different Delight

Meditation on Psalm 16:3

“I say of the holy people who are in the land, ‘They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.’”

On Sunday mornings I drive about a half an hour to attend a church.  After I part my car and walk into the lobby, someone usually greets me.  After this, I enter the ‘sanctuary’ and sometimes greet even more people, shaking their hands and talking with them.  I sit down in a green cushioned pew and wait till the service begins.  Depending on how my week went or the quality of my time with the Lord that morning, my mind is either ready for the service or in a thousand different directions.  However, I confess that I am not thinking about how the little old lady sitting in front of me is all my delight.  Nor am I pondering about how the young couple sitting behind me brings me great joy or the teenager sitting the next pew over makes me smile.  Yet this is exactly what this verse says!!  “I will say to the holy people in the land, ‘They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.’”

God’s people are ‘the holy people in the land.’  God told the Israelites in Exodus 19:5-6, “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”  Thus the Israelites were the holy people among all the nations or at least that was God’s desire for them.  This is echoed and applied to Christians in 1 Peter 2:9.  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 

The holy people in the land are the ‘saints’ or in today’s society we would call them the true Christians, the followers and lovers of Jesus Christ who treasure him above all else.  It is not our own righteousness that makes us holy; rather, it is the Person and work of Jesus Christ: “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.  So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11). “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). 

What does it look like to be holy?  It means that a person is set apart, pure, doing what is right and seeking and devoting himself/herself to God’s glory above all other things.  They are marked by obedience to God’s commandments (Deuteronomy 28:9), abstinence from immorality and greed (Ephesians 5:3) and thus purity of heart, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love (Colossians 3:12-14).  They walk in the path of righteousness that leads to holiness (Romans 6:19) and they cleanse themselves from wasteful things so that they will be special vessels, useful to the Master and prepared for any good work (2 Timothy 2:20).  Whenever someone pursues after God, these qualities will be evident in their lives!  

These people are the ones who are ‘noble’ or ‘excellent.’  There is no 'nominal Christian' to them.  They follow Christ and love him even when it is not popular.  They seek pleasure from Christ.  As a result, they are the ones we take pleasure in.  If a teenage boy tells his friends, ‘No’ when they tempt him to view pornography or watch an immoral movie, we should be quick to affirm him of his choice and say, "You made us proud when you said no."  When a father chooses his spouse and children over a greedy promotion that promises more money but would consume his time, he is one we should delight in. Patience with children, humility in ministry, forgiveness to those who have hurt us and ridding the house of anything impure, including many television shows—the people who do these things should be our delight!  Let these people be our 'celebrities,' not the ones on television.

Can you and I honestly say that we delight in our brothers and sisters in Christ who do these things?  If not, why not?  Is it possible that we do not desire God's glory through them?  If this is the case, then I must check my own heart until I can say along with King David, the author of this Psalm, “I will say to the holy people in the land, ‘They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight!”