Psalm 49

I have been going through the book of Psalms the past few days. Last night I read Psalm 49, and there are a lot of really impacting verses here. I highlighted nearly all of them in my Bible, so I thought I would share this passage with my faithful blog followers.
Psalm 49 in full says:
1 Hear this, all you peoples; listen, all who live in this world, 2 both low and high, rich and poor alike: 3 My mouth will speak words of wisdom; the utterance from my heart will give understanding. 4 I will turn my ear to a proverb; with the harp I will expound my riddle: 5 Why should I fear when evil days come, when wicked deceivers surround me-- 6 those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches? 7 No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him--8 the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough-- 9 that he should live on forever and not see decay. 10 For all can see that wise men die; the foolish and the senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others. 11 Their tombs will remain their houses forever, their dwellings for endless generations, though they had named lands after themselves. 12 But man, despite his riches, does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish. 13 This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their sayings. 14 Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions. 15 But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself. 16 Do not be overawed when a man grows rich, when the splendor of his house increases; 17 for he will take nothing with him when he dies, his splendor will not descend with him. 18 Though while he lived he counted himself blessed-- and men praise you when you prosper-- 19 he will join the generation of his fathers, who will never see the light [of life]. 20 A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish.


I love these verses. There are so many verses in the Bible that tell us not to store our riches on earth. This whole Psalm is dedicated to telling you what you have to look forward to if you store your treasures on earth, rather than in heaven. (One of the best  verses pertaining to this, in my opinion, is Luke 12:34, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.") "...Wise men die; the foolish and the senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others," (Ps. 49:10). Wisdom is no better than foolishness or senselessness if you care more about earthly gain such as money, success, power, etc. And by the Psalmist using the word 'perish', we can obviously tell that this means hell. "This is the fate of those who trust in themselves," (Ps. 49:13). Why would you trust yourself when you could trust in God? I don't trust myself at all. How often have we all promised ourselves that we would never do something, and then we ended up doing just what we promised ourselves we would not do? I know for a fact that I can't trust myself. So why should I try when God is 100,000,000,000 X wiser and more trustworthy? He knows what is best for me. He knows the plan for my life; I was not born without purpose. I anxiously await  for the day when I can do what God put me on earth to do. :)