“Hey, that’s not the way we do it here! If you want to be part of the group, then you have to do it our way. Others may do it another way, but this is the way we do it.”
We all have our ways of doing things, and often being part of a group means that things have to be done in a particular way. That is the idea behind the phrase in Psalm 1:1, which says, “Blessed is the man do does not stand in the way of sinners.” The point in this verse is that there is God’s way of doing things, and whatever is not God’s way of doing things, is called “the way of sinners.”
In Isaiah 55:8-9, God says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
So the bottom line is this: we don’t think like God, and we don’t act like God. And that’s because we are sinners and totally alienated from God’s way of thinking and acting.
The word “way” is a word that refers to a busy road. Figuratively, however, it is used to refer to a course of life or a mode of action. So the idea is—“Blessed is the man who does not go down the same road as the rest of the world.” The blessed man lives his life in a different way than people who don’t know God.
Jesus was certainly a man who was considered to be out of step with the world. He was different, and He didn’t fit in. Yet He wasn’t out of step with God. It was just that God’s ways were so different form man’s way, that He appeared odd. But in reality, He was the only one traveling down the right road.
Well, you and I can walk on the right road, too, if we keep our eyes on Christ and not on the world around us. Remember, the broad way leads to destruction and the narrow way leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14). “Blessed is the man who does not stand in the way of sinners.”
Now you know the real meaning of the word. So be alert! The world has its ways, and if your way is like their way, then you’re going the WRONG WAY!