Let me sum up Psalm 15 with a few points--Psalm 15 asks who may live on your (God's) holy hill? and gives the answers as:
HE WHOSE
- walk is blameless
- does what is righteous
- speaks truth
- no slander
- does neighbor no wrong
- no slur on fellowman
- despises a vile man
- honors those who fear the Lord
- keeps his oath
- lends money without usury
- does not accept a bribe
Well the first two, I think are the KEY to this whole Psalm and the KEY to the answer. HE WHOSE WALK IS BLAMELESS, and who DOES WHAT IS RIGHTEOUS.
Now, can we all be blameless...I mean are we all without sin? ABSOLUTELY not. No one, except Jesus is without sin. So we are all to blame for sin...How can our walk be blameless? And what does it mean to do what is righteous? Well, this is what I wanted to look into.
Let's start with the definition of righteous. In the Webster dictionary, Righteous means: 1-acting in accord with divine or moral law--free from guilt or sin. 2 -morally right or justifiable. So, doing what is righteous means to do/act according to divine/moral law, being free from guilt or sin. Can we be free of sin? No, like I said we all sin...but....and a big BUT here, we can be free of sin and guilt through Jesus Christ. Jesus died on the cross for ALL...I repeat, ALL of our sins, so that we can be free from sin and guilt of that sin. But, here I have to ask...does this make everyone free of sin because Jesus did this, I mean don't we have to do something too. We can't just assume that the whole world is now guiltless and blameless since Jesus died for all....right? What do we have to do to be able to be blameless?
Let's look at the definition of blameless. The definition of blame in the dictionary is: 1- an expression of disapproval or reproach. 2 -a state of being blameworthy-fault, sin. 3-responsibility for something believed to deserve censure. So if we are to blame...we are at fault, we are being disapproved of, we are responsible for something deserving censure/judgment. So being blameless means that we are now without fault we are now not deserving judgment. How do we get to a point of not receiving judgment? How can we be without fault.....oh, by being righteous....by acting in accord to God's (divine) law. Now we need to know how to act in accord to God's law.
First we need to answer the question of what we have to do about this "Jesus" thing. About how can we be free of sin, because part of becoming righteous as we figured out earlier was being free of sin. Does this mean we need to be "religious?" Like, I just need to go to church, I just need to say "yah, I believe there is a God." Is this what we need to do to be free of sin? NO. Going to church, believing there is a "god," does not make you free of sin. Jesus is a big...no Jesus is THE factor here. We must believe that Jesus was born of God into our world, that he was without sin, that he died on the cross for punishment of all our sin. Alright so that covers being free of past sin. Now we need to know what to do to act in accord to God's law (righteous).
I decided to look to Matthew 6:33. This verse talks about seeking God's kingdom first and seeking his righteousness. So we need to seek God's kingdom and seek God's righteousness....hmmm....God's righteousness...well isn't this just what we have been thinking about. To seek God's righteousness means to seek God's divine law. Where do we find God's divine law? In the Bible of course!! So we should be reading and studying our Bibles. And then once we know God's law for our life we need to continue to seek it, seek His kingdom---by pursuing the things that he has asked us to pursue and leaving behind the things that he is asking us to leave behind (I think first here about the sin we need to leave behind).
Alright, I want to challenge those of you reading this to do something with me. I really struggle with making myself take time to be in God's Holy Word. I go through phases where I do a really good job and then I start to slack off again. I know life goes much smoother because I am prepared for it--when I am spending time reading the Bible and time in prayer and time memorizing some scripture. So, my challenge to you is to do what I am trying to do and pick a couple chapters to read out of your Bible for each day of the week and then find a passage to work on memorizing, and then once a week take time to meditate on some scripture. Read the scripture, pray, read again, pray some more--take about 30 minutes and find out what God wants you to hear out of the passage that you have chosen. I am going to do this too, and have been trying to do this better lately....I am going to check in and expect to hear a report from any of you readers about what you learned this week!! And I will share too. Let's open up our hearts and minds to hear what God has to tell us and seek to be righteous and blameless before the Lord.
A reading plan:
from today until the 21st: Acts 19 and 20 read daily
memorize: (we are working on Romans 6)
meditate: Psalms 63
On the 21st-- through the 27th:
Acts 21-22 daily
Memorize
Meditate: James 5
Hope you enjoy your time with the Lord...I know I will!!
