Psalms 101:1-3 ESV
“I will sing of steadfast love and justice;
to you, O Lord, I will make music.
I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.”
This is really a good description of the hearts and minds of
those whose lives are surrendered to God (to Jesus Christ). We want to serve
the Lord with our lives because we love him. We want to walk with integrity of
heart because God/Jesus now lives inside us by his Spirit. Thus the love of God
is within us, and we have the mind of Christ, and so we desire what our Lord
desires. We want to walk in righteousness and holiness and no longer in sin.
We don’t want to set before our eyes things which are
worthless, immoral, impure, wicked, and evil. And so if these things appear
before our eyes because we are on the internet, then we go away from them, or
we discard them, and we do whatever we can to avoid seeing anything like that
in the future. Bad stuff is everywhere, though, and not just on the internet,
so we have to train our eyes to look away or to walk away or whatever is
needed.
Now, this doesn’t mean we are never tempted to sin. Even
Jesus was tempted to sin, but he did not sin. And since we still live in flesh
bodies on the earth, and since Satan is roaming around seeking whom he may
devour, we are going to be tempted to sin, and we still have the propensity to
sin, and there may be times when we do sin. But as followers of Jesus Christ we
are to no longer walk in sin. Sin is to no longer be our practice.
For, if sin is still what we practice, and if we are still
deliberately and habitually sinning against the Lord and against other humans,
and if we do not repent of (turn away from) our sinful practices in order to
follow our Lord in obedience, then Scripture teaches that we don’t love God, we
don’t know God, he doesn’t know us, we are not born of God, and we will not
inherit eternal life with God, but we will die in our sins (1 John 3:4-10).
But if we love our Lord, we will obey him. And we will walk
with integrity of heart in honesty, uprightness, godliness, holiness,
righteousness, moral purity, and faithfulness. But we don’t do this in our own
flesh, but only in the strength of the Lord. For God’s grace trains us to
renounce (say “No!” to) ungodliness and fleshly lusts, and to live
self-controlled, upright, and godly lives while we wait for our Lord’s return
(Titus 2:11-14; Romans 6:1-23).
Psalms 101:3-4 ESV
“I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.”
We are not to hate people, but we are to hate evil and the
evil that people do. We are to hate evil deeds that evil people do who profess
faith in Jesus Christ, too. And we are never to coddle them in their sins, but
we are to call them to repentance and to walks of obedience to our Lord. And
then we are to guard our hearts against that same evil so that it does not take
us captive to do its will. For in trying to help others out of sin we may be
tempted by the same sin, so we have to be careful.
Sometimes we have people of influence in our lives who do
evil deeds, in practice, and we can’t always just walk away, depending on the
circumstances. So, we have to have our guards up so that we are not overtaken
by sin ourselves because of the evil in those people. And sometimes the evil
that they do is to try to provoke us to some kind of sinful response, and so we
have to be aware of this so that we do not fall into any of their traps, for
they can be very clever at what they do.
A perverse heart should be far from us who follow Jesus
Christ with our lives. We are not to be people who are obstinate, rebellious,
prideful, deviant, and disobedient to our Lord and to his commands (New
Covenant). And evil should not be what we practice, but righteousness and
holiness and obedience to our Lord should be what we practice. And this is not
just Old Testament teaching. It is what is taught in the New Testament, too.
But the point here is that, not only should we be living
godly and holy lives, but we need to guard our hearts and minds against all
evil, and we need to hate evil and wicked deeds for the same reason God hates
sin, because of the damage that it does to our lives. And this is why we are
called to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth and to proclaim
the excellencies of God who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light,
to help others to be free from their addiction to sin so they can walk in
righteousness.
But we do all this in the strength of the Lord, and so he
gets all the glory and praise for what he has done and is doing in our lives.
Amen!
[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom
6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal
5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col
3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb
3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]
When I Was Walking
An Original Work / January 16, 2020
When I was walking along the way,
My Lord was with me, and He did say,
“My child I’m with you. I hear you pray,
‘Oh, help me, Lord! Need You today!’”
He is my friend, near to the end.
Gently leads me. His servant be.
He helps me pray – knows what to
say.
He’s all I need. On Him I feed.
When I am wond’ring of what to do,
He gently leads me to what is truth.
He is my helper. He strengthens me.
When I’m in want, supplies my need.
He comforts me with all His love.
Gives me His grace from heav’n
above.
I heed His call to watch and pray,
To guard my heart throughout each
day.
When He is calling to come to Him,
To let Him lead you, trust Him within,
How will you answer to Him today?
Will you say, “Yes, Lord, have your way”?
Do not neglect to let Him in,
Cleanse you from sin, made new
within.
Leave all your sin, obey your Lord,
Trust in His Word – His mighty
Sword.
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