Yahweh of Armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
Parallel Translations
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Yahweh of Armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you.
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O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
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(84-13) O LORD of hosts, happy is the man that trusteth in Thee.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Psalms 84:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 62:8 Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us.
- Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose confidence is in Yahweh. For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won’t cease from yielding fruit.
- Isaiah 30:18 Therefore Yahweh will wait, that he may be gracious to you; and therefore he will be exalted, that he may have mercy on you, for Yahweh is a God of justice. Blessed are all those who wait for him.
- Isaiah 50:10 Who among you fears Yahweh and obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in Yahweh’s name, and rely on his God.
- Psalms 2:12 Give sincere homage to the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish on the way, for his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all those who take refuge in him.
- Psalms 34:8 Oh taste and see that Yahweh is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
- Psalms 146:5-6 Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God: who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps truth forever;
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 84:12 O LORD of hosts, blessed [is] the…
Psa 84:12 O LORD of hosts, blessed [is] the man that trusteth in thee.
Ver. 12. O Lord of hosts, &c.] Conclusio Epiphonematica.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Who, though he be deprived of the opportunity of…
Who, though he be deprived of the opportunity of paying that outward worship to thee which is appropriated to thy house, yet giveth thee that inward worship which is more valuable in thy account, and placeth his chief trust, and hope, and happiness in thee alone.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 84:12. Blessed is the man that trusteth in…
Psa 84:12. Blessed is the man that trusteth in thee — Who, though he be deprived of the opportunity of paying that outward worship to thee which is appropriated to thy house; yet giveth thee that inward worship which is more valuable in thy account, and places his chief trust, and hope, and happiness in thee alone. Apply these two verses to the Lord Jesus: “He is a sun to enlighten and direct us in the way, and a shield to protect us against the enemies of our salvation; he will give grace to carry us on from strength to strength, and glory to crown us when we appear before him in Zion; he will withhold nothing that is good and profitable for us in the course of our journey, and will himself be our reward, when we come to the end of it. While, therefore, we are strangers and sojourners here below, far from that heavenly country where we would be, in whom should we trust to bring us to the holy city, the new Jerusalem, of which the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple, but in thee, O Saviour and Redeemer, who art the head of every creature, the captain of the armies of heaven and earth, the Lord of hosts, and King of glory? Blessed, thrice blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.” — Horne.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that…
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee - Blessed in every respect. His lot is a happy one; happy in thy friendship; happy in being permitted to worship thee; happy in the blessings which religion scatters along his path here; happy in thy sustaining grace in times of trial; happy in the support given in the hour of death; happy in the eternity to which he is going. Oh that all men would try it, and experience in their own souls the happiness - the real, genuine, deep, permanent joy - of trusting in God; of believing that there is a God; of confiding in his character; of leaning on him in every situation in life; of relying on his mercy, his grace, and his faithfulness, in the hour of death!
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 12. O Lord of hosts] The addition of God…
12. O Lord of hosts] The addition of God in P.B.V., as in Psa_84:8, comes from the Roman or unrevised Latin Psalter (see p. lxxii), and is found in some MSS. of the LXX.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that…
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. (comp. Psa_2:12)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 12. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the…
Ver. 12. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. Here is the key of the Psalm. The worship is that of faith, and the blessedness is peculiar to believers. No formal worshipper can enter into this secret. A man must know the Lord by the life of real faith, or he can have no true rejoicing in the Lord's worship, his house, his Son, or his ways. Dear reader, how fares it with thy soul?
None.
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Ver. 12.
I. The one thing that makes man blessed. Trust in God.
Blessed, etc.
(1) For all things;
(2) at all times;
(3) in all circumstances.
II. The Blessing contained in that one thing. God
himself becomes ours;
(1) his mercy for our pardon;
(2) his power for our protection;
(3) his wisdom for our guidance;
(4) his faithfulness for our preservation;
(5) his all sufficiency for our supply.
III. The certainty of the blessing.
(1) From David's own experience;
(2) from the solemn appeal to God respecting it.
O Lord God of hosts, etc. G. R.
Ver. 12. The blessedness of the life of faith over that of carnal enjoyment, religious feeling, self confidence, living upon marks and evidences, trusting in man, etc.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that…
Psa_84:12
O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.
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Of trust in God
I. The exercise itself.
1. Man is altogether insufficient for his own happiness.
2. God alone is all-sufficient for the happiness of man.
3. God in His Word has made a revelation of His grace, mercy, and goodwill towards sinners.
II. Some properties which ought to attend our trust in God. Our trust in God ought to be--
1. Universal, for all good things.
2. Fixed, close, continual.
3. Heroic and fearless.
4. Joyful.
5. Resolute and determined.
6. Reverential and humble.
7. Regular; i.e. corresponding to Gods revealed will, and to the tenor of His promises.
8. Everlasting.
III. The blessedness of the man that trusteth in the Lord.
1. God Himself pronounces him so.
2. His state, with regard to God and eternity, is perfectly safe.
3. In being thus exercised he gives glory to God.
4. His trust frees him from all care and fear.
5. In thus trusting, he is filled with hope and joy.
6. In so doing, he is strengthened both for doing duty and suffering affliction.
7. His trust shall not be disappointed. (A. Swanston.)
On a religious trust in God, and the happiness attending it
I. The nature and grounds of a religious trust in God. To trust in God is to repose a steady confidence in His protection, and to have an invariable acquiescence of mind under all the dispensations of His providence. This notion of a Supreme Being, and submission to His will, cannot fail in producing proper sentiments of those Divine attributes, upon which this duty of affiance is grounded; which are His wisdom, power, goodness, and faithfulness.
II. The efficacy and advantages that result from this religious trust in God.
1. It teacheth us to entertain a modest and humble opinion of ourselves, and it is the best expedient to prevent those dangerous consequences that naturally flow from our supposed excellences.
2. By entertaining an humble opinion of our own endowments, our minds are more sensibly affected with juster apprehensions of Gods goodness, and more disposed to patience and resignation under His dispensations.
3. To form a true notion of Divine providence will afford an additional strength to this argument: pursuant to this we must consider, that the same all-powerful, all-wise Being, who created the world, must of necessity be the Governor of it, and so order affairs and dispose circumstances as He thinks fit.
III. Motives for improvement of this doctrine.
1. A believing trust in Gods help naturally produces the firmest persuasion and gives us the strongest security of His almighty protection.
2. We have the contemplation of a future state to cure all our discontentedness and to secure the stability of our peace. (W. Adey.)
Blessed trust
I. The heart of religion always has been, and is, trust in God. The bond that underlies all the blessedness of human society, the thing that makes the sweetness of the sweetest ties that can knit men together, the secret of all the loves of husband and wife, friend and friend, parent and child, is simple confidence. And the more utter the confidence the more tranquilly blessed is the union and the life that flow from it. Transfer this, then--which is the bond of perfectness between man and man--to our relation to God, and you get to the very heart of the mystery. Not by externalisms of any kind, not by the clear dry light of the understanding, but by the outgoing of the hearts confidence to God, do we come within the clasp of His arms and become recipients of His grace. Trust knits to the unseen, and trust alone. And trust is blessed, because the very attitude of confident dependence takes the strain off a man. To feel that I am leaning hard upon a firm prop, to devolve responsibility, to give the helm into another steersmans grasp, whilst I may lie down and rest, that is blessedness, though there be a storm.
II. A life of faith is a blessed life, because it talks with God (Psa_84:9-11). The ordinary Christian life of this day is terribly wanting in this experience of frank, free talk with God, and that is one reason why so many of us professing Christians know so little of the blessedness of the man that trusts in God. You have religion enough to keep you from doing certain gross acts of sin; you have religion enough to make you uncomfortable in neglected duty. You have religion enough to impel you to certain acts that you suppose to be obligatory upon you. But do you know anything about the elasticity and spring of spirit in getting near God, and pouring out all your hearts to Him? The life of faith is not blessed unless it is a life of frank talking with God.
III. The life of faith is blessed, because it has fixed its desires on the true good. A day in thy courts, etc. This psalmist, speaking with the voice of all them that trust in the Lord, here declares his clear consciousness that the true good for the human soul is fellowship with God. But the clearest knowledge of that fact is not enough to bring the blessedness. There must be the next step--I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness--the definite resolve that I for my part will act according to my conviction, and, believing that the best thing in life is to have God in life, and that that will make life, as it were, an eternity of blessedness even while it is made up of fleeting days, will pub my foot clown and make my choice, and, having made it, will stick to it. It is all very well to say that a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand: have I chosen to dwell in the courts; and do I, not only in estimate but in feeling and practice, set communion with God high above everything besides?
IV. A life of faith is a life of blessedness, because it draws from God all necessary good. The Lord God is a Sun and Shield--brightness and defence. The Lord will give grace and glory: Grace, the loving gifts which will make a man gracious and graceful; glory, not any future lustre of the transfigured soul and glorified body, but the glory which belongs to the life of faith here on earth; link that thought with the preceding one. The Lord is a sun . . . the Lord will give glory; like a little bit of broken glass lying in the furrows of a ploughed field, when the sun smites down upon it, it flashes, outshining many a diamond. If a man is walking upon a road with the sun behind him, his face is dark. He wheels himself round, and it is suffused with light, as Moses face shone. If we walk in the sunshine we shall shine too. If we walk in the light we shall be light in the Lord. No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. Trust is inward, and the outside of trust is an upright walk; and if a man has these two, which, inasmuch as one is the root and the other is the fruit, are but one in reality, nothing that is good will be withheld from him. For how can the sun but pour its rays upon everything that lives? (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The joy of trustfulness
I. The joy of trustfulness. The deepest and purest joys are the outcome of trustfulness and the abandonment of oneself to another. The law holds good of our relationship to God, as of our relationship to each other, namely, that we receive according to our faith. Trustful people have a way of communicating their own simplicity and generosity to those with whom they have dealings. To trust the goodness of another is to make goodness seem to him at once more desirable and more possible of attainment. God has created us with this natural capacity for trustfulness, and the exercise of it is a source of joy. The dearest and most precious relationships are founded upon it. The joys of love and friendship are deeper and purer than those of material possessions.
II. The believers joy is the object of his trust. Trust is sometimes misplaced. There are those who are base enough to take advantage of trust reposed in them. Many tragedies are caused by the discovery of untrustworthiness in the man or woman in whose hands we have placed our lives. The most interesting stories in literature are those of heroes and heroines whose trustworthiness is for long under a cloud, but which is finally vindicated. That which underlies our trust in each other is our love for goodness itself. We needs must love the highest when we see it. Our real love is for God, who is goodness itself. We love persons in whom we trust that goodness is to be found in large measure. The believer who makes God his trust is happy indeed, nor is there any danger of shock and disappointment to such a trust. If other trusts bring much joy, this brings supreme joy.
III. The supreme character of the believers joy--blessedness. There is something heavenly about the word. The kind and degree of joy which God experiences is known by this name. He is the ever-blessed God, blessed for evermore. Blessedness is calm and tranquil; it brings a sense of steadiness to the mind, and enables it to do its work without distraction or anxiety. (R. C. Ford, M. A.)
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Psa_85:1-13
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Psalms
BLESSED TRUST
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Psa 84:12.
In my last sermon from the central portion of this psalm I pointed out that the Psalmist thrice celebrates the blessedness of certain types of character, and that these threefold benedictions constitute, as it were, the keynotes of the portions of the psalm in which they respectively occur. They are these: ‘Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house’; ‘Blessed is the man in whose heart are the ways’; and this final one, ‘Blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee.’
Now, this last benediction includes, as I then remarked, both of the others; both the blessedness belonging to dwelling in, and that realised by journeying towards, the House of the Lord. For trust is both fruition and longing; both aspiration and possession. But it not only includes the other two: it explains and surpasses them. For they bear, deeply stamped upon them, the impression of the imperfect stage of revelation to which the psalm belongs, and are tied to form in a manner which we ought not to be. But here the Psalmist gets behind all the externals of ceremonial worship, and goes straight to the heart of spiritual religion when, for dwelling in, and journeying towards, any house of the Lord, he substitutes that plain expression, ‘the man that trusteth in Thee.’
Now, the other two benedictions of which I have spoken do respectively form the centre of the first and second portions of this psalm; in each case the remainder of the section being an explanation of that central utterance. And here the case is the same; for the verses which precede this final exclamation are various phases of the experience of a man who trusts in God, and are the ground upon which his faith is pronounced ‘blessed.’
So I desire now to view these three preceding verses together, as being illustrations of the various blessednesses of the life of trust in God. They are not exhaustive. There are other tints and flashes of glory sleeping in the jewel which need the rays of light to impinge upon it at other angles, in order to wake them into scintillation and lustre. But there is enough in the context to warrant the Psalmist’s outburst into this final rapturous exclamation, and ought to be enough to make us seek to possess that life as our own.
I. First, then, note here how the heart of religion always has been, and is, trust in God.
This Psalmist, nourished amidst the externalisms of an elaborate ceremonial, and compelled, by the stage of revelation at which he stood, to localise worship in an external Temple, in a fashion that we need not do, had yet attained to the conviction that, in the desert or in the Temple, God was near; that no weary pilgrimage was needed to reach His house, but that with one movement of a trusting heart the man clasped God wherever he was. And that is the living centre of all religion. I do not mean merely that our way to be sure of God is not through the understanding only, but through the outgoing of confidence in Him-but I mean that the kernel of a devout life is trust in God. The bond that underlies all the blessedness of human society, the thing that makes the sweetness of the sweetest ties that can knit men together, the secret of all the happy loves of husband and wife, friend and friend, parent and child, is simple confidence. And the more utter the confidence the more tranquilly blessed is the union and the life that flow from it. Transfer this, then-which is the bond of perfectness between man and man-to our relation to God, and you get to the very heart of the mystery. Not by externalisms of any kind, not by the clear dry light of the understanding, but by the outgoing of the heart’s confidence to God, do we come within the clasp of His arms and become recipients of His grace. Trust knits to the unseen, and trust alone.
That has always been the way. This Psalmist is no exception to the devout souls of his time. For though, as I have said, externalisms and ritualisms filled a place then, that it is an anachronism and a retrogression that they should be supposed to fill now, still beneath all these there lay this one ancient, permanent relation, the relation of trust. From the day in which the ‘father of the faithful’ as he is significantly called Abraham, ‘believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness,’ down all through the ages of that ancient Church, every man who laid a real hold upon God clasped Him by the outstretched hand of faith. So the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews was fully warranted in claiming all these ancient heroes, sages, and saints, as having lived by faith, and as being the foremost files in the same army in which the Christians of his day marched. The prophets who cried, ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength,’ were saying the very same thing as the Apostles who preached ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’ The contents of the faith were expanded; the faith itself was identical. Like some of those old Roman roads, where to-day the wains of commerce and the chariots of ease and the toiling pedestrians pass over the lava blocks that have been worn by the tramp of legions and rutted by the wheels of their chariots, the way to God that we travel is the way on which all the saints from the beginning of time have passed in their pilgrimage. Trust is, always has been, always will be, the bond that knits men with God.
And trust is blessed, because the very attitude of confident dependence takes the strain off a man. To feel that I am leaning hard upon a firm prop, to devolve responsibility, to put the reins into another’s hand, to give the helm into another steersman’s grasp, whilst I may lie down and rest, that is blessedness, though there be a storm. In the story of frontier warfare we read how, day by day, the battalion that had been in the post of danger, and therefore of honour, was withdrawn into the centre; and another one was placed in the position that it had occupied. So, when we trust we put Him in the front, and we march more quietly, more blessedly, when we are in the centre, and He has to bear the brunt of the assailing foe.
Christian people! have you got as far past the outsides of religion as this Psalmist had? Do you recognise as clearly as he did that all this outward worship, and a great deal of our theology, is but the scaffolding; and that the real building lies inside of that; and that it is of value only as being a means to an end? Church membership is all very well; coming to church and chapel is all right; the outsides of worship will be necessary as long as our souls have outsides-their bodies. But you do not get into the house of the Lord unless you go in through ‘the door of faith,’ which is opened to us all. The heart of the religious life, which makes it blessed, is trust in God.
II. And now, secondly, a life of faith is a blessed life, because it talks with God.
I have already said that my text is expanded in the preceding verses. And I now turn to them to catch the various flashes of the diversely coloured blessedness of this life. The first of them is that which I have just mentioned. The Psalmist has described for us the happy pilgrims passing from strength to strength, and in imagination has landed them in the Temple. And then he goes on to tell us what they did and found there.
The first thing that they did was to speak to Him who was in the Temple. ‘Behold! O God our Shield! and look upon the face of Thine anointed.’ They had, as he has just said, ‘Every one of them appeared before God in Zion.’ As they looked up to Him they asked Him to look down upon them. ‘Behold! O God our Shield!’ ‘Shield’ here is the designation of God Himself, and is an exclamation addressed to Him-’Thou who art our God and Shield, look down upon us!’ And then comes a singular clause, about which much might be said if time permitted: ‘Look upon the face of Thine anointed.’ The use of that word ‘anointed’ seems to suggest that the psalm is either the outpouring of a king, or that it is spoken by some one in the train of a king, who feels that the favour bestowed upon the king will be participated in by his followers. But whilst that, if it be the explanation, might carry with it a hint as to the great truth of the mediation of Jesus Christ, our true King, I pass that by altogether, and fix upon the thought that here one element of the blessedness of the life of faith lies in the desire that God should look upon us. For that look means love, and that look secures protection and wise distribution of gifts. And it is life to have His eye fixed upon me, and to be conscious that He is looking at me. Dear brethren! if we want a lustre to be diffused through all our days, depend upon it, the surest and the only way to secure it is that that Face shall be felt to be turned toward us, ‘as the sun shineth in his strength’; and then all the landscape will rejoice, and the birds will sing and the waters will flash. ‘Look upon me, and let me sun myself beneath Thine eye’-to have that desire is blessed; and to feel that the desire is accomplished is more blessed still.
Dear friends! it seems to me that the ordinary Christian life of this day is terribly wanting in this experience of frank, free talk with God, and that that is one reason why so many of us professing Christians know so little of the blessedness of the man that trusts in God. You have religion enough to keep you from doing certain gross acts of sin; you have religion enough to make you uncomfortable in neglected duty. You have religion enough to impel you to certain acts that you suppose to be obligatory upon you. But do you know anything about the elasticity and spring of spirit in getting near God, and pouring out all your hearts to Him? The life of faith is not blessed unless it is a life of frank speaking with God.
III. The life of faith is blessed, because it has fixed its desires on the true good.
The Psalmist goes on-’A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand; I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.’ ‘A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.’ We all know how strangely elastic time is, and have sometimes been amazed when we remembered what an infinity of joy or sorrow we had lived through in one tick of the pendulum. When men are dreaming, they pass through a long series of events in a moment’s space. When we are truly awake, we live long in a short time, for life is measured, not by the length of its moments, but by the depth of its experiences. And when some new truth is flashed upon us, or some new emotion has shaken us as with an earthquake, or when some new blessing has burst into our lives, then we know how ‘one day’ with men may be as it is with God, in a deeper sense, ‘as a thousand years,’ so great is the change that it works upon us. There is nothing that will so fill life to the utmost bounds of its elastic capacity as strong trust in Him. There is nothing that will make our lives so blessed. This Psalmist, speaking with the voice of all them that trust in the Lord, here declares his clear consciousness that the true good for the human soul is fellowship with God.
But the clearest knowledge of that fact is not enough to bring the blessedness. There must be the next step-’I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness’-the definite resolve that I, for my part, will act according to my conviction, and believing that the best thing in life is to have God in life, and that that will make life, as it were, an eternity of blessedness even while it is made up of fleeting days, will put my foot down and make my choice, and having made it, will stick to it. It is all very well to say that ‘A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand’: have I chosen to dwell in the courts; and do I, not only in estimate but in feeling and practice, set communion with God high above everything besides?
This psalm, according to the superscription attached to it, is one ‘for the sons of Korah.’ These sons of Korah were a branch of the Levitical priesthood, to whose charge was committed the keeping of the gates of the Temple, and hence this phrase is especially appropriate on their lips. But passing that, let me just ask you to lay to heart, dear friends! this one plain thought, that the effect of a real life of faith will be to make us perfectly sure that the true good is in God, and fixedly determined to pursue that. And you have no right to claim the name of a believing Christian, unless your faith has purged your eyes, so that you can see the hollowness of all besides, and has stiffened your will so that you can determine that, for your part, ‘the Lord is the Strength of your heart, and your Portion for ever.’ The secret of blessedness lies here. ‘Seek ye the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.’
IV. Lastly, a life of faith is a life of blessedness, because it draws from God all necessary good.
I must not dwell, as I had hoped to do, upon the last words preceding my text, ‘The Lord God is a Sun and Shield’-brightness and defence-’the Lord will give grace and glory’: ‘grace,’ the loving gifts which will make a man gracious and graceful; ‘glory,’ not any future lustre of the transfigured soul and glorified body, but the glory which belongs to the life of faith here on earth. Link that thought with the preceding one. ‘The Lord is a Sun . . . the Lord will give glory’; like a little bit of broken glass lying in the furrows of a ploughed field, when the sun smites down upon it, it flashes, outshining many a diamond. If a man is walking upon a road with the sun behind him, his face is dark. He wheels himself round, and it is suffused with light, as Moses’ face shone. ‘We all, with unveiled faces beholding, are changed from glory to glory.’ If we walk in the sunshine we shall shine too. If we ‘walk in the light’ we shall be ‘light in the Lord.’
‘No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.’ Trust is inward, and the outside of trust is an upright walk; and if a man has these two, which, inasmuch as one is the root and the other is the fruit, are but one in reality, nothing that is good will be withheld from Him. For how can the sun but pour its rays upon everything that lives? ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.’ So the life is blessed that talks with God; that has fixed its desires on Him as its Supreme Good; that is irradiated by His light, glorified by the reflection of His brightness, and ministered to with all necessary appliances by His loving self-communication.
We come back to the old word, dear friends! ‘Trust in the Lord, and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed.’ We come back to the old message that nothing knits a man to God but faith with its child, righteousness. If trusting we love, and loving we obey, then in converse with Him, in fixed desires after Him, in daily and hourly reception from Him of Himself and His gifts, the life of earth will be full of a blessedness more real, more deep, more satisfying, more permanent, than can be found anywhere besides.
Who was it that said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no man cometh to the Father but by Me’? Tread that path, and you will come into the house of the Lord, and will dwell there all the days of your life. ‘Believe in God, believe also in Me.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.