Christ is the only One, the God-man, who satisfies God’s desire and fulfills His good pleasure. God finds all His delight in Him, and He wants His Christ to be our everything. In Psalms 15 we see that David asked a question, “Who can dwell with God on His holy mountain?” – but the answer he gave was not the correct one. David said that it was the righteous man, the upright man, the man who doesn’t sin but does only good. David was in the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – yet God wants only Christ! God doesn’t want good men nor evil men, God wants God-men, the duplication of Christ!
The correct answer to David’s question in Psa. 15:1 is Psalms 16, where we see Jesus Christ, the God-man who satisfies God’s desire and fulfills His good pleasure! This morning we were going through the first few verses, and I enjoyed it so much not only to pray over them but also to see them expounded and shown in the life of the Lord Jesus! Here are some of the things I enjoyed about the Lord’s human living(which implies His incarnation) while praying over these verses and reading the portion in the Morning Revival on the Crystallization-Study of the Psalms [inspired from the life-study of the Psalms]:
Psa. 16:1, Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You – The Lord Jesus did not trust in Himself or His own strength to be preserved – He depended on the Father and asked the Father to preserve Him. Christ took refuge in God – He ran away from people / other things to be in God – and He trusted in God. If you trust in God, He will be your refuge. We need to ask the Lord, Lord Jesus, protect us; preserve us; we trust in You and we depend on You!
Psa. 16:2, I say to Jehovah, You are my Lord; No good have I beyond You – God was Christ’s Lord and He had no good beyond God. Many people “claim their rights”, no matter how guilty they are and how many bad things they have done. But the Lord didn’t claim His right – He took God as His Lord. We also need to take God as our Lord – when we do this, we will know who our Possessor is. God is our Possessor – it is not our parents, our friends, our family, etc – but God! God owns us, and we have no good beyond God, He is our portion!
Psa. 16:3, As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent; All my delight is in them – Christ delighted in the saints, in the church, in the disciples, in His believers! The believers / the saints are the many members who constitute His Body, and they are the excellent ones! For David, the saints of the land were excellent; for Christ, the believers were excellent – all His delight was in them! What about us? The saints the Lord put us with, are they excellent? We need to treasure and find our delight in the saints, the excellent ones, the co-members of the Body of Christ! We are not excellent in ourselves, but in Christ we are excellent!
Psa. 16:4, The sorrows of them who bartered for some other god will be multiplied; Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, Nor will I take up their names upon my lips – the Lord Jesus had nothing to do with other gods or their offering while He was on earth, and He didn’t even name these gods or these people’s name. He would not defile or contaminate His lips with the names of other gods. Today the name of Jesus is the name of our God, and we need to call on His name! On the other hand, we also need not to mention the names of the gods or the idol worshippers.
Psa. 16:5, Jehovah is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; You maintain my lot – Christ took God as the portion of His inheritance! Christ’s inheritance was God, and Christ’s enjoyment (the cup) was also God. The Lord Jesus did not want to inherit physical things or lands or even countries – He had God as His inheritance and His enjoyment. Today Christ is the portion of our inheritance! And we don’t need to worry about our lot, since Christ maintains our lot! Just as God maintains the earth from Satan’s full usurpation so that it would be Christ’s inheritance, so Christ is maintaining our lot and our inheritance! We don’t need to fear – our lot is set, our inheritance is unchanging and will not go away!
Psa. 16:6, The measuring lines have fallen on pleasant places for me; Indeed the inheritance is beautiful to me – there are measuring lines, there’s a portion allotted to Christ, and He is happy with it! The earth will be filled with the glory of God and Christ’s name will be excellent in all the earth! Christ appreciated the possession given by God and He knows that this “messy earth” will become a pleasant globe to Christ when He comes back to inherit it. The same with us, God has allotted us a portion of Christ, an inheritance, and the measuring lines have fallen on pleasant places! Praise the Lord for this beautiful Christ as our inheritance!
Psa. 16:7, I will bless Jehovah, who counsels me; Indeed in the nights my inward parts instruct me – when the Lord was on the earth He kept saying that what He speaks He doesn’t speak from Himself but from His Father who is with Him. The Lord Jesus had God the Father always with Him and was instructed and counseled by Him! He was so one with the Father that He was instructed by the Father through His inward parts… Christ was one with God the Father in His inward parts, being counseled and instructed by the Father within… Paul was the same, he was one with Christ in his inward parts – even in the tender compassions and mercies of Christ. We are never alone: Christ is always with us, and He is in our inward parts instructing us, counseling us, strengthening us… [picture source: Preserve me O God; intro: Christ satisfies God’s desire]
Lord, how we love You in Your human living! You took refuge in God and were preserved by God! You did not have any other good but God the Father, and God was Your Lord. Lord Jesus, You treasure the saints and call them “the excellent ones”, finding delight in them! What a fine and perfect man! You did not even mention the name of other gods – You worshipped and served only God the Father! The Father was Your inheritance and Your cup, Your possession and Your enjoyment! Praise You, Lord, You are such a wonderful One in Your human living!
