Psalm 16:2-3 - February 9, 2009

Ps 16:2-3 I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing." 3 As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. NIV

This psalm is a psalm of surrender. It is a confession of need! “You are my Lord!” Oh, that the saints of God would live from this place in their hearts. An acceptance of Christ’s Lordship over us is the foundation of security and peace. David concedes God as his sovereign and God as his supply. The second part of this phrase, “apart from you I have no good thing” is reflected in the words of James in James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
The revelation that all good things come from a loving heavenly father provides an anchor for both our emotional security and our practical confidence that provision has been made for us through faith in Christ. This is the benefit of accepting someone’s right to Lordship over your life. The one whom you accept as Lord is then obligated to provide for all of your needs. In this truth is also found the consequence of rejecting God’s right to rule in our lives. If we reject his Lordship, we forfeit his obligation to provide. The one whom we place in his stead as Lord in our hearts is now responsible for us with great consequence to our well being. If we choose ourselves as Lord, we choose someone who is unable to fulfill this role since nothing good can come from us apart from God. If we choose another, either a person or submission to Satan’s dominion we choose to subject ourselves to an imperfect and untrustworthy rule with no guarantees or security afforded to us.
As a reflection of our embrace of God as Lord, our hearts are then liable to embrace that which pleases him and honors his values and will. This aspect is reflected in the second portion of this passage as King David expresses his delight in the saints. The implication of David’s statement that the saints are “glorious ones in whom is all my delight” is that David has chosen to esteem that which God esteems. David considers glorious the life that is lived for God. He asserts by the implication of this passage that he chooses not to find pleasure in the acts of the wicked but in the high standard embraced by those who live for God. He reflects this earlier in the Psalms in Psalm one when he praises those who distance themselves from the wicked, the sinner and the mocker. To delight in the things that God delights in and reject those things that God rejects is a living demonstration of embracing the Lordship of Christ in our lives.