Reading the Biography of the Real Author of the Psalms?
Psa. 16:1 ¶ Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
Psa. 16:2 I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
Psa. 16:3 ¶ As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.
Psa. 16:4 ¶ The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
Psa. 16:5 ¶ The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
Psa. 16:6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
As we read through the Gospel of Luke over the next several weeks, keep in mind that Jesus…go with me here…that Jesus wrote the book of Psalms.
I know, I know, David wrote a bunch of them, and the sons of Korah, etc. etc. but they were inspired by the Holy Spirit, which is part of the One, triune God, of which Jesus is also fully a part.
So Jesus, who has all of the Psalms in His mind, comes and lives among us and lives a life like we live. Not all of the Psalms apply at all times, and some of them really are the expressions of the people that wrote them more than the expression of Christ in them. But some of them fit to a T.
Jesus lived His life with this stamp of approval all over it:
“You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
Kingdoms, riches, power, authority, whatever. Jesus didn’t find His identity or His confidence in any of those things.
I have no good apart from you.
Would be the number one message at dinner just hours before He’d be killed just like it was the number one message during the sermon on the mount. “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven,” is the same message as “abide in Me and I in you, because apart from Me you can’t do anything.”
You don’t have to make yourself feel like the goodness of the Psalms any more than Christ had to. It was already in Him. As His Spirit worked through David and the others to write these prayers, Christ’s Spirit works in you to live out that legacy.
He’s alive, now more than ever, in the Church (the people) that He loves.
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