Season 2 Episode 1 

Dear friends. I am so happy to have you at Season 2 of the Book of Psalms devotional as we move back to Psalm 1 and onward. 

A well-memorized poem, Some People, Chinese:有的人, written by Cang Kejia, Chinese 藏克家, begins like this: 

"有的人活着 A person is alive, 他已经死了; but he’s already dead. 有的人死了 A person is dead, 他还活着。but he still lives on."  Cang is not written this for Jesus Christ, but he captured the status of the moral man in its deadly state. It is hopeless to live on without assurance of life. 

This psalm is written no so different from Jesus' other conversation. Jesus loves to use language that everyone will understand in an agricultural setting. Have you seen farmers work on the threshing floor? Can you imagine? As a kid, I used to watch my grandparents and parents, at the harvest season of the summer, threshing grain, winnowing them, throwing them against the wind so that chaff will be driven away and the grain will be left out for the food of the year and the seed for the coming years. It is a joyous memory to see all the work and efforts of the year have borne solid grains for living. Every time, children would also be rewarded with popsicles and we all celebrate together. 

It is just like our life. Now the restrictions of the pandemic will be soon lifted up. We will have the freedom to do what we always hoped to do. Have we changed? Or are we finally entitled to do whatever we wish to do? When we abuse freedom, we will lose freedom instead. That's how we learned that true freedom can only come from above. The real freedom is the freedom of being loved by Jesus. The assurance of God's love and our salvation is the root of our life so that we do not have to be like chaff. Everything we do falls in the hands of God. God promised to take care of righteousness and give them eternal life while the wicked will perish at the days of judgment. As human beings, we do not get to see all the judgments behind the scene, but we will all see the final judgment that the wicked deserves. 

Only those who are known and loved by God have the assurance of blessedness. They will be like a tree whose life is rooted and protected. There are only two kinds of people in this world. The ones who are loved and have freedom; and the ones who are rejected and abuse freedom. God did not leave the hypocrites with a third option. Our life needs to be rooted in Jesus Christ to have a blessed foundation. Only Jesus who have never done or thought of evil has become constrained for us and humbled himself in the form of man and walk among us to become the foundation of our life. Jesus is dead and he is alive according to the scriptures to become the imperishable seed of life for us and teach us the way of eternal life. True freedom is from being loved by Jesus Christ. The foundation in Jesus Christ assures eternal life by the running stream and our leaves will never wither. Therefore, we are called blessed. What about you yourself? Are you blessed?

Music: Blessed Assurance by Alan Jackson. 

Poem translated by alexcwlin; edited by Adam Lam. 

All rights reserved.