Psalm 92 commends those who do not merely go through the outward motions of religion, but who genuinely and from the heart love to praise and honor God. “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God” (Psalm 92:12-13).
These faithful ones are compared to a mighty and unshakeable tree that has been planted within the courts of the Old Testament temple. These believers are rooted in the place of worship and the forms of worship that God had established for them. It is not surprising, then, that “they still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green” (verse 14).
John Angell James picks up on that metaphor when he says that if we wish to grow in grace, we must love the context in which God has called us to worship—the local church. “They who would grow in grace,” he says, “must love the habitation of God’s house. It is those that are planted in the courts of the Lord who shall flourish, and not those that are occasionally there.” If we wish to flourish there, we must make a firm commitment, not an occasional visit. We must be as grounded in the local church as that tree was in the courts of the temple. And so I ask: Would it be said of you that you are grounded in your local church?
