6. CONFESS YOU ARE THE BLESSED MAN
When I was a little boy, we lived in Chicago. In the summer we would go out to what was called a forest preserve where a lazy, slow old river flowed through the woods. Weeping willow trees grew on the river banks and spread over the water.
Though it was very warm in Chicago at that time of the year, when we sat by the river under the shade of a weeping willow tree, the moisture from the river made it a cool and comfortable resting place. This place of relaxation was like one of the pictures that God gives in Psalm One.
He says that the blessed man who delights in the law of the Lord shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of waters. As a blessed man, your branches will spread out to provide shade and rest and comfort for those who are weary and oppressed in their souls. This is your picture, as you confess that you are that blessed man.
This is the opposite of Satan’s picture of you and your relationship to people and circumstances. He tries to frighten you about a fearful future — that you will get old, you will lose your loved ones, your children may turn against you — or your parents won’t understand you.
He deludes you into thinking the minister does not properly feed you. He gives you the wrong ideas of your church and fills your life with concepts of fear. They come up in your mind again and again, and even though nothing at all happens concerning those wrong pictures of his, you start to live out some imaginary happening in relation to them. As a result of that picture, you actually become fearful.
Maybe your companion is perfectly well and strong, but perhaps the thought of death comes and you think, “I’ll lose my mate.” You actually picture your mate having a heart attack and dying and being buried. You sit there trembling and say, “Oh God, don’t let this ever happen. Please, please!”
However, nothing happens !! Satan designed those pictures to keep you fearful. God’s Word declares, “He has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, and of love and of a sound mind”. God wants you to have a picture of the blessed man as He gives it to you here in the First Psalm.
Every believer who reads and practices God’s Word receives certain pictures about himself from the Lord. You should take in these pictures, meditate upon them and take time to think about them in the night before you go to bed, and a few moments before you actually arise in the morning.
The Blessed Man Meditates Day and Night
Can’t you just see this picture of the blessed man sitting there delighting and meditating in the law of the Lord? Well, that blessed man is you !!
The devil would like to come along and say, “You don’t like to read the Word of God.” However, you must boldly confess, “No, Satan, you are a liar. This new creation of God which I do delight in the law of the Lord. I do delight in talking with my Heavenly Father.”
The reason why many people do not like to read the Word is because they do not read it as His Word. They read it as a textbook or from the sense of duty. They say, “I must perform the duty of reading the Bible and somehow read ten chapters a day. God requires this of me.”
God does not require you to read ten chapters a day. What God wants you to do is to enter into His presence as you read it and say, “What do you mean by this, Father” You say, “Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of the scornful.”
“Father, I don’t perfectly understand that. Do you mean that I should not witness to the lost? You tell me to do so in other parts of Your Word, and yet this sounds as if we shouldn’t have anything to do with sinners.” As you ask God about that Scripture, He will quickly reveal to you that He simply means, “Don’t get involved with sinners and their practices. Don’t sit with them, walk with them, stand with them or become involved with what they do. Of course, you are to witness to them, love them, be a friend to them, and help them.”
So you see, you must not only read the Word, but you need to talk to your Heavenly Father about it, and He will reveal to you what it really means.
As you read, “The blessed man … has his delight in the law of the Lord,” picture yourself and say, “I am that blessed man, Lord, because you say this about me. I am your child and you have blessed me with all spiritual blessings.”
The Blessed Man is a Fruitful Tree
God says also that, “You will be like a tree that brings forth its fruit in its season”. This is what you really are. You are not the frightened person that Satan tries to make you think you are. You are not confused and stumbling around, not knowing the will of God. You are the blessed man that God talks about, who brings forth his fruit “in his season.” You and I want everything to happen all at once, but God says the fruit comes forth “in his season.”
Many of the best fruits grow very slowly. An apple tree may be six or seven or eight years old even before it fully produces. In the beginning, you see just a little green sapling growing up. If you try to hurry it, you only hurt it.
Gradually, the sapling grows larger and larger, and one day the branches stretch out, the bark turns brown, and it becomes a tree. In the first years, you will see only an apple or two or three. Finally, people look at it and say, “See that marvellous tree with so many bushels of wonderful apples. We will enjoy its fruit.”
It took a long time for that apple tree to produce fruit — So it is with you. However, even when no one else can see it, and your life seems barren, your Heavenly Father sees you like a tree that will bear fruit in its season.
When people come along and give you a negative confession about yourself, and say things contrary to the truth of God’s Word, don’t believe them. Make a bold confession of what God says about you.
God says the blessed man — and that is you — is like a tree that grows and brings forth fruit in its season. Do you wonder about this? Have you served the Lord for months or years, and yet not seen any fruit as a result?
After I served the Lord for thirteen or fourteen years, my life came to a time of terrible crisis. For about three years, I was in the blackest night of the soul that you could imagine. I was confused and troubled.
All of it was only God’s preparation of my heart. It was God chastening and dealing with my soul as He prepared me for the real work I had to do. If you had looked for fruit in my life then, you would have seen none. I never saw it myself until I began to read God’s Word and to understand that what
God says is true — is true. Although outwardly I saw no immediate changes, I no longer saw myself in all the bad light that I seemed to see myself in before. I began to read God’s marvellous Book and to meditate upon His Word day and night.
The Blessed Man has the Fruit of the Spirit
When I read the First Psalm and other Scriptures, I saw myself, so I said, “I am like that tree. I am planted by the rivers of water. My roots are going down deep, fed by the Blessed Holy Spirit and by the truth of the Word. The life of Jesus lives in me. He is the Vine, and I am the branch.”
As I saw myself that way, I began to confess, “Lord, it is Your life that is flowing in me. It is your direction that works in my life. I know that contained in the fruit of my life will be love, joy, peace, goodness, faith, temperance, meekness, long-suffering. It will be the fruit of the Spirit and I’m going to let You do the work. In the meantime, I believe what You say about me — that I am that tree planted by the rivers of water and that I will bring forth my fruit in whatever season You have prepared. Now I will patiently wait for it.”
The Bible mentions those who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God (Hebrews 6:12). When you and I have faith, we see the true picture of ourselves in God’s Word. However, it takes patience to wait until the tree manifests its fruit. It may take months. It may take many years.
In Abraham’s case, it took twenty years. In David’s case, it was many years before the promise that he would be king ever came to pass. In the meantime, he went through terrible trials. At one time it became so bad, he had to act like an insane man and let his spittle run down his beard. He scrabbled on the door until they thought he was an utterly mad man and so they left him alone.
The Bible also tells us of Joseph’s long waiting period. He went through horrible experiences. He was sold as a slave, falsely accused, put into prison and unjustly treated. Yet that picture of faith that God gave him in a dream never left him. He knew that God was working in his life, and he was patient and waited until God manifested His purpose.
It took many years also for God’s purpose to be revealed in my life, but as I began to confess God’s Word, I saw myself as a blessed man. When I read Deuteronomy 28, I saw myself blessed everywhere and in everything. I also began to realize that all things did work together for good as I read in Romans 8:28.
Jump Joyfully into Every Trial
I saw “all things” meant every crisis, every problem, every trouble, every so-called trial. I saw God
was in each circumstance, and that it wasn’t the devil doing something to me.
The devil could do nothing to me unless God allowed it. Therefore, if God allowed it, it was to bring to pass the “good” that God told me about in His Word. So I would say, “Father, open the eyes of my understanding that I may see You in this circumstance.”
Sure enough, somewhere in the midst of that trial or test, as I began to make that bold confession, I would see God was in it. I saw all things worked together for good to them that love the Lord — and I knew I did love Him.
God would say, “Come on, son, jump right into the middle of this trial with joy.” That is what the Bible tells you to do — “to rejoice when you fall into manifold temptations”, because God is in them. You don’t have to give in to temptation because once again it says, “God is faithful and just. He won’t suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will with the temptation make a way to escape that you may be able to bear it.”
The Bible is literally filled with pictures of faith that will help us in every situation and every temptation and trial. In I John we have this one, “Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.”
A Threefold Prosperity Picture
Look at that Scripture closely and you will see three types of prosperity:
First, God says, “I will that you prosper.” That has to do with material prosperity. God wants to put the tools of material prosperity into your hands. He doesn’t do it for you to increase your living standard beyond what is reasonable, but that you might increase your giving. He wants to give you the privilege of entering into the blessed ministry of giving.
Secondly, He wants you to prosper and be in health. He wants you to prosper physically, and He wants to keep your body well.
Finally, and most important of all, God wants you to prosper spiritually, even as your soul prospers. He wants your life to be so filled with His glory and power that you can manifest that radiant Light which is Jesus Christ, in this dark world of sin. He wants His promises turned into a vital reality in your life. Then everyone can see and know that God is alive today and living in you. He wants the Word of Christ to dwell in you richly in all wisdom.
This is the threefold prosperity picture your Heavenly Father wants to bring to pass in your life.
Once you understand what the Word of God is, and about the bold confession, you will know how to apply the word of God to your own life. Then it will become a part of your living experience as you act upon it and do what God says you can do.
One lady was listening to our previous series of broadcasts on the “Word of God,” and as the truth of God’s Word was declared over the airwaves, a spark of faith was touched off in her inner heart. A miracle happened as she responded in faith to what she heard and made a bold confession.
She wrote, “I was feeling badly and half asleep when your program came on the air,” she wrote. “Fortunately, I heard the few final words of your message. I am referring especially to what you said about asking the Lord how you could love people more, and He told you to simply — do it.”
“That really struck me in a powerful way, so I decided to act upon that truth”. I said to myself, “The Lord is my strength and my help”, and I got out of bed. “What a blessing, praise God!”
God knows what you can do, who you are, and what your destiny is. Believe God and act upon what He tells you in His word — by making a bold confession today that you are the blessed man in Psalm One.
