[Songs of Praise] Do You Desire LifeSample

Who The Lord Will Bless?

After David taught us, in the first ten verses of Psalm 34, how to bless the Lord, he asked us to pay attention because he was about to teach us the fear of the Lord. In His teaching, we can identify three types of individuals God blesses.

The first are those who respond positively to Him. These people are teachable. They desire to see God’s goodness amid ugly circumstances, and they want to see God do the things only He can do.

If we fear God, we will control our tongue (don’t speak evil about others, don’t say deceitful things, tell the truth), depart from evil and do good (we can learn to do good from God), and seek peace and pursue it.

If we all did these three things, we would create a space in our sphere of influence for God to come in and begin to transform us – and everything around us.

What a contrast that is with being unteachable, desiring evil, speaking deceit, doing evil, and seeking divisiveness.

The second type of individuals we see God bless are the righteous. The Lord’s eyes are on them, and his ears are open to them. They have troubles, but when they cry out to the Lord, He delivers them. They have a broken heart and a contrite spirit. They approach God praying, “Lord, I’m coming to You because You are the only answer in this.”

David says that the Lord guards all the bones of the righteous and that not one of them is broken. When they came to check if Jesus was dead on the cross, He had already given up his Spirit, so they didn’t break His legs (John 19:32–33). In His infinite mercy, God gave us the Righteous One so that by placing our faith in Christ, we are made righteous. The promises of the righteous now belong to us.

In contrast, the unrighteous do evil, are wicked, and hate the righteous. The Lord is against them; they are cut off, and evil will ultimately slay them.

The third type of individuals we see God bless are the redeemed. They are His servants. They trust him, so He redeems them, and they are not condemned.

Lord, we are the contrite, the brokenhearted. Through Jesus, You have made us righteous. You have redeemed us, and You condemn none of us. You are creating beautiful things from our brokenness. We are forever grateful for Your great love.