Surrounded By God’s Favor

“For You, Lord, bless the righteous one;

You surround him with favor like a shield.”

Psalm 5:12 HCSB

You must have guessed by now that I love the Psalms! They contain such a broad range of expressions of men of faith at different times of their lives. Last week for instance, we drew from a Psalm written by David at a very difficult moment of his life. Some other Psalms were written in times of joyful celebrations. One thing one cannot help but notice is the depth of sincere passion in the expressions preserved for us in the Bible that has made the collection of the Psalms such a timeless hymnal for men of faith from generation to generation. Many of the Psalms also show us the character of God as revealed to the Psalmists and as such there is a lot to glean from the Psalms.

Lately I have been musing on Psalm 5. It began as a cry unto the Lord as the Psalmist expressed his prayer and meditation to God. The ending verses however move from supplication to confident declarations of God’s blessings and favor on the righteous one. The Psalmist understood that this was a fact and an incontestable reality! God blesses the righteous. He surrounds the righteous with favor.

Unfortunately many believers in our day do not even have the sort of understanding and mentality that the Psalmist had. We still seem to consider ourselves as people who have to beg God for His blessings. We think of ourselves as people who need to do certain things to obtain God’s favor. I think the problem usually is our perspective about who the righteous person is.

God doesn’t measure righteousness by any external standards. We do not become righteous by any merits of our own. Nothing you can ever do will be good enough to impress God to earn you righteousness (see Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:10). So God’s righteousness is a gift of grace through faith in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:21-25, Romans 5:17-19, 1^st Corinthians 1:30, 2^nd Corinthians 5:21). If you are a believer in Christ Jesus then God Himself calls you righteous.

It means therefore that the accurate cross-testamental application of Psalm 5:12 is that believers in Christ Jesus ought to have a settled assurance of God’s blessings and favor.

“For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received [all had a share and we were all supplied with] one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift [heaped] upon gift”

John 1:16 Amplified Version

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ”

Ephesians 1:3 New International Version

Muse with me on this Psalm and gain the divine perspective that God’s blessings and favor are yours already. Just as Balaam realized, if God has blessed, no one can reverse it! (Numbers 23:20). No hordes of hell or human machinations can change that. I say in the words of the Psalmist: I am blessed, blessed by the Lord; His favor surrounds me like a shield.