Psalm 1: Blessed or Earned?

God's blessing is unearned favour. It is goodness gifted to the undeserving. Otherwise it is wages. The one is dependent upon God's grace; the other upon God's obligation. It is rather easy to invert the opening verses of Psalm 1 to read that if you meditate on God's law, and keep free of the wicked, sinners and mockers, God will bless you with fruitfulness. It is good to meditate on God's law day and night. It is good to keep free of the influence of the ungodly. But one can't earn grace: it's God's unearned gift. The Psalm starts with the grace. The man who shows these attributes is one God has come to with grace. Loving God's word and spurning worldliness arise from God's grace given without obligation. It is good to be immersed in God's word and to be impervious to the world: so seek God's grace, and by faith in his promise take up a walk of holiness that depends on his work not yours. The fruitfulness of the godly comes from God drawing a man to his word and away from the world, not from a man drawing God to himself (as if!) and standing valiantly against the world. Holy living is the obedience of faith springing from God's undeserved gift of himself. That contrasts with the obedience of law attempting to obligate God to give fruitfulness because of holy living. The one is grace, the other is law.