Read:Psalm 1

What makes you happy? Chocolate? Sitting on the couch watching TV? Going on holidays or playing with your friends?

I’m sure a lot of these things make you happy. The Lord gives us many blessings in life that we are allowed to enjoy. But do you know what the Psalmist says makes him happy — very happy? He says that he delights in the law of the Lord. God’s Word and commandments give him great delight.

What about you? Does God’s Word make you happy? Do you enjoy reading your Bible? Often we can think that other things make us a lot happier than God’s commandments. We’d prefer to be watching a movie than reading the Bible.

But God warns us in this Psalm to be very careful about the things that we learn from the world. We will be blessed if we don’t walk in the way of the ungodly or stand in the path of sinners. This means that the world is trying to tell us how to spend our money, what food we should eat, where we should go on holidays and what clothes we should buy. But we shouldn’t be learning these things from the world, but instead we should be learning these things from God himself. True happiness can be found in obeying the Lord.

The problem is that we so often want to do what the world suggests rather than what God tells us. Sometimes we just want to think about ourselves even though God tells us to love others above ourselves. Sometimes we just want to get angry at our parents even though God tells us to respect them. Even though we love the Lord, so often we still love sin so much.

The Lord knows how hard this is for us, and so he reminds us in this Psalm to delight in his law — to obey him. Enjoy reading the Bible and learning, not only about your sinfulness, but also about God’s grace and love in sending Jesus, who never sinned, to be your Saviour.

Reflection with your child:

How can you make Bible reading something that makes you happy?

Source: Sermon by Rev. S. ‘t Hart