Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Live the Blessed Life | The Writings | Psalm 128

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

How do we live the blessed life? Is your reverence for God evident in your relationships? Are you leaving an impact in the world? In today's episode, Keith shares how Psalm 128 encourages us to live the blessed life through reverence, relationships, and reach. Prepare your heart this Advent with the 2024 TMBT Advent Calendar! Each day, receive a new prompt for Scripture, prayer, and reflection—designed to help you slow down and reflect on the Hope, Love, Peace, and Joy that Jesus offers. Sign up now to receive your free Advent calendar! Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 128

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Everyone wants the blessed life, but how do you get it? How do you even determine the definition of the blessed life? The world often defines blessing as wealth or success or comfort, but Psalm 128 offers a different perspective. Here, blessing isn't defined by what we achieve or acquire.

Instead, it's rooted in who we honor, how we grow. how we cultivate our relationships and the legacy we leave behind. Psalm 128 reveals the blessed life through three essentials, reverence, relationships, and reach. So let's just start with the first one. Reverence. Psalm 128 opens with a powerful statement about revering God. It says, blessed are all those who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him. Now, the idea of fearing the Lord might feel out of place in a conversation about blessing.

Fear is something we usually try to avoid. But the Bible's concept of fear of the Lord is different. It's not about being scared. It's about recognizing the greatness, the holiness, and the authority of God. Reverence means living with an awareness of who God is, an awareness of his power, his wisdom, his goodness, and then allowing that knowledge to guide our decisions and actions. When we revere God, it puts everything else in perspective.

Suddenly, life isn't just about our own ambitions, our own desires, and plans. It's about honoring God and how we live. We start to see His wisdom is greater than our own. His standards as trustworthy, his commands as good and worth following. Reverence isn't about checking off a list of rules. It's about a heart posture that values God above all else. James 125 sheds light on what it looks like. to live with this kind of reverence. It says, but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that

gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. It might sound ironic that fear could lead to freedom, but there's a profound peace that comes from living with reverence for God. When our lives are anchored in God's wisdom, we aren't constantly pulled by the changing values or expectations of the world we live in. We're rooted in something steady, something unshakable, something that gives us life. And here's the truth. We all revere something. We might not use the word reverence, but we all hold certain things in high regard. For some, it's career success or wealth or reputation. For others, it's personal happiness or social approval. But when we make anything other than God the center of our

lives. It becomes a shaky foundation. Revereering God is about choosing the one foundation that won't let us down. So let me ask you a few questions. What does reverence for God look like in your life right now? Are there any areas where it's challenging to trust his wisdom or align your life with his will? What would change if you lived with deeper reverence? Seeing God is the ultimate authority and foundation of your life. Let's move from reference to relationships. After describing the blessing of reverence, the psalm shifts to the impact that reverence has on your relationships with other people. It says in verse three, your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. This image of a fruitful vine and young olive shoots

shows us that blessed relationships don't just happen by chance. They're cultivated. They take care and concern. Vines and olive trees both require time and nurturing to grow and bear fruit. So the blessings of meaningful relationships come as we invest consistently in them. And of course, research backs that up. The Harvard study of adult development, one of the longest studies on human happiness, found that the quality of our relationships is the strongest factor in our well-being. It's not money or success, but close, healthy relationships. Psalm 128 echoes that finding. It says real blessing is found not in what we own, but in the strength of our relationships with other people. And our relationships are where our reverence for God is expressed practically, because if we fear God, we will honor others.

When God is at the center of our life, we'll treat people with respect and patience and kindness. A marriage like a fruitful vine isn't perfect, but it is sustained by commitment and love. Children who are like olive shoots flourish in environments of encouragement, patience, and guidance. Paul speaks to this connection between reverence and relationships in Ephesians 5. It says, submit to one another out of reference for Christ. The order of this Psalm is no accident. It reminds us that our connection to God should shape how we interact with others, especially those closest to us. We can't claim to honor God while neglecting or mistreating the people he's placed in our lives.

A couple more questions. How are your relationships doing? Are there areas where you need to invest more time, more patience, more understanding? Do your relationships need some cultivating, some care? some attention. How can your reverence for God shape the way you treat those closest to you? Let's move on finally to reach. Psalm 128 widens its focus from the individual and the family to the broader reach of a life well lived. It says in verses 5 and 6, May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

May you live to see your children's children. Peace be on His. Israel. The blessed life, as described here, isn't just about personal happiness. It's about leaving an impact that extends beyond our own lives. This idea of reach is about legacy. When we live with reverence and invest in relationships, we're laying a foundation that can affect our children, grandchildren, even our whole community. Our choices ripple out influencing the people around us in ways we may never even fully see. Generational blessing isn't just a good idea, it's reality. Think about Timothy in the New Testament. His faith was shaped by his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother Lois. Paul notes this generational influence in 2 Timothy 1.

Paul writes, I am reminded of your sincere faith, which you first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded now lives in you also. Timothy's faith didn't happen in isolation, it was passed down through his family, shaped by the lives of people who walked with God before him. This is the kind of reach we're called to have, not by being perfect, but by living lives that genuinely honor God and care for others. It's about passing down something that matters, something that lasts. And of course, this can be referring to biological children, or it can refer to spiritual children. All of us leave a legacy in people's lives. Here's some more questions. What kind of legacy are you building for the next

generation? And how can your choices today leave behind something meaningful for those who come after you? Look, living this way isn't always going to be easy. It's not always going to attract the attention or the approval of the world, but it's a life that God calls blessed. So today, let's ask God to shape our hearts for reverence to guide us in loving others well, to help us live lives that reach far beyond our own. Amen.