{"id":1082,"date":"2011-01-30T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.convergingzone.com\/ricciardelli\/who-is-the-blessed-man-by-dudley-hall\/"},"modified":"2011-01-30T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-30T15:00:00","slug":"who-is-the-blessed-man-by-dudley-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/robertricciardelli\/ricciardelli\/who-is-the-blessed-man-by-dudley-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is the Blessed Man? by Dudley Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: left\">\n<table bgcolor=\"#ffffff\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\" cellspacing=\"1\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"left\" colspan=\"1\" rowspan=\"1\" style=\"color: black;font-family: Georgia,Times New Roman,Times,Serif;text-align: left\">\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\"><span style=\"color: green;font-family: Cambria,Georgia,Times New Roman,serif\"><em>Blessed  is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in  the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is  in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.<\/em> <\/span><em><span style=\"color: green;font-family: Cambria\">He  is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its  season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.<\/span><\/em><\/span><span style=\"font-size: large\"><span style=\"color: #006600;font-style: italic\"><span style=\"color: green\"> Psalms 1:1-3 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: large\"><a href=\"\" name=\"12db853ffa4c6fcd_LETTER.BLOCK8\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\"><span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  Who is that man? How stringent does one have to be to fit in these  descriptions? Does only one misstep disqualify? Is the blessed man one  who has never once heeded the counsel of a misguided friend or a  mischievous huckster? Does his resum<\/span><span>\u00e9<\/span><span>  have to be clear of ever standing for even a moment in the way of  sinners? What if periodically he slips into scoffing about something  that has confused him?<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And how much must he delight in the law of God? It mentions day and night. Does that mean all day and all night?<span>\u00a0 <\/span>How  much would be acceptable? And how deeply does he need to meditate? Can  he just think it over or does he need to steep in hours of meditating  over each word and thought?<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  The holy prosperity that is promised to this blessed man \u2014 is it  withheld from anyone who does not perfectly fit the description?<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  Sadly, we find ourselves longing for the condition described in the last  verse. We would love to be like a tree planted by water, fruitful and  well. But we still are not confident we can expect that because we  aren\u2019t sure how well we have fulfilled the requirement.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  There is one man who has done it! He is not just an isolated man who  happened to score perfectly. He is the representative man. He did it for  a whole race of people who couldn\u2019t do it for themselves. He is the Son  of Man as well as the Son of God. He actually lived up to these  qualifications while on earth, facing the common temptations that haunt  all of us. In fact, he is the only truly \u201cblessed man\u201d in all of  history. Others may have experienced some good fortune, but only this  man has the ultimate blessing of the Father spoken over him.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  Our hope is that we can be identified with him. We can, by faith, be  transferred from the kingdom of disqualified mankind into the kingdom of  God\u2019s dear Son. We are then blessed because of our relationship to him,  not because of our success or failure to qualify.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px\"><span style=\"font-size: large\"><span style=\"font-family: Cambria\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0  We are then able to taste the goodness of God and embark on a journey  to know more of that goodness. We can choose to follow those  descriptions of the blessed man. We find ourselves avoiding bad counsel  and distracting friends because we are intent on experiencing more of  the love we have tasted in being found in him. The delight of our heart  then turns to the words and explanations of God to uncover more of the  mysteries of the ultimate treasure. One day we look up to discover that  we are acting like blessed people. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1596,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ricciardelli"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Who is the Blessed Man? by Dudley Hall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/robertricciardelli\/ricciardelli\/who-is-the-blessed-man-by-dudley-hall\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who is the Blessed Man? 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