New Year's Resolutions....0r are they Dissolutions?

New Year’s resolutions…..it seems like we try these every year….and within a few days they become New Year’s dissolutions!  Now, there is nothing wrong with making such resolutions.  Goals are important.  Without goals, you’ll never accomplish anything of substance in your life.  

This year consider taking one Psalm a day from the Bible.  Read it through and choose a word, a phrase, or a concept from that Psalm and let it help shape your day.  You will find that when you take one step (this one day), that you will continue the next day and then the next.  Soon you have developed a habit.  And, is that not what resolutions are all about?  “I resolve to exercise every day!”  How do you do that?  Well, you have to start exercising one day at a time.

So, let’s begin to learn to make resolutions a way of life!

For example read Psalm 1:

1 How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,

Nor stand in the path of sinners,

Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

3 He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,

Which yields its fruit in its season

And its leaf does not wither;

And in whatever he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,

But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the Lord  knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the wicked will perish.  (New American Standard)

Now…what stood out to you?  I would like to make as a goal to “delight in the law of the Lord, and in His law meditate day and night.”  (verse 2) So, how do I do that?  I begin thinking about (meditating on) what I just read.  One way I can do that is to sing a song based on these verses.

Psalm 1 set to meter by Isaac Watts (S.M. = short meter; 6.6.8.6)

 1 The man is ever blest
Who shuns the sinner's ways,
Among their counsels never stands,
Nor takes the scorner's place;

2 But makes the Law of God
His study and delight,
Amidst the labours of the day,
And watches of the night.

3 He like a tree shall thrive,
With waters near the root:
Fresh as the leaf his name shall live,
His works are heavenly fruit.

4 Not so th' ungodly race,
They no such blessings find;
Their hopes shall flee like empty chaff
Before the driving wind.

5 How will they bear to stand
Before that judgment-seat,
Where all the saints at Christ's right hand
In full assembly meet?

6 He knows, and he approves
The way the righteous go;
But sinners and their works shall meet
A dreadful overthrow.

What tune do I use for this text?  A word of explanation first.  (suggested hymn tunes below)

Isaac Watts, often called the Father of English Hymnody, had a nineteen year project of setting almost every psalm to meter.  He set 138 psalms, with most done in two or three different meters.  The 12 he omitted did not lend themselves too readily for his particular purpose or which were in large measure a repetition of other Psalms.  His renditions of the Psalms in this form are not translations of the Psalms, but rather an interpretation and application of the Psalms in the light of truths revealed in the New Testament.  He explained his purpose as “to accommodate the Book of Psalms to Christian worship.”

He interpreted Psalms in the light of the N.T. revelation.  And utilizing much of the N.T. language, he set the Psalms in easy metrical verse so as to make them more singable in private and in public worship. Psalm 98 is the setting for one of his most popular songs:  Joy To The World.

For Psalm 1, use one of the following tunes:

S. M. = Short Meter (6.6.8.6)

You can sing the above text to one of these hymn tunes:

Blest Be The Tie That binds (DENNIS)

Rise Up, O Men of God (ST. THOMAS)

Breathe on Me, Breath of God (TRENTHAM)

Soldiers of Christ, Arise (SILVER STREET)