Tag Archives: righteous

Jan 11 2017
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The Psalms

psalm 19

psalm-19

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the book of psalms?

No?

Well. I love it. A lot.

The poetic truth found throughout this book continues to blow me away, and psalm 19 is no different.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. (v7-9)
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. (v13-14)

“Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins”

Presumptuous here means proud or arrogant.

So, here, David is asking God to keep him away from prideful sin.

Man. Ffffiiiinnnneeeee.

When I look at this psalm as a whole, the thing that keeps hitting me in the forehead is: the law of the Lord is the only thing that is true and right and holy and anything outside of that – anything you, Kayla, manufacture for yourself – is pride. It is sin. You are presuming you know better than God. That you can run the world. And contrary to popular belief, girls do not run the world. (Thanks Bey.)

I love that, in verse 10, David says that everything listed above is sweeter than honey. And we’re not talking about Jessica Alba.

The law and testimony and precepts and commandments of the Lord are to be desired. I don’t get to make my own rules up. The laws of the Lord are not meant to hold a good man down. They are not meant to suck the fun out of life.

No.
They are to be desired because they lead to life.
They lead to deep, intimate communion with God.
They teach us how to be more like Jesus.

Following the laws of the Lord perfectly don’t save us. Jesus has already done that. We cannot perfectly do all that He has laid out in His law. But they do teach us about God’s character and show us how great His love is – that, even though we cannot keep His law perfectly (and sinless perfection is the requirement to come before Him) He sent His Son, Jesus, to live His law perfectly, die a brutal death on our behalf, and raise again, defeating death and sin and hell forever. The law shows us our great need. The law shows us how great our Savior is. And that…well…that is definitely sweeter than honey.

to read all of psalm 19, click here

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Nov 18 2016
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The Psalms

psalm 15

psalm-15

O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.

Well.
Isn’t that encouraging.

“He who does these things shall never be moved.”

I do not hit that standard.

Let’s pretend, for a second, that I was reading this psalm without any knowledge of who Jesus is. That I approached this text as someone who just wanted to figure out how she could work her way to God and earn some holiness.

I think I would throw the book through a window and start hyperventilating after I read these words.

Everything that David lays out here – everything that it takes to dwell on the holy hill of the Lord – I do the opposite of those things.

For crying out loud – today alone I could place a checkmark by most of the list, indicating that which I failed to comply with.

But.

Thankfully…

I have Jesus.

I have the One, and only One, who has ever completely and wholly done these things. The only One righteous enough to sojourn in the tent of the Lord, to dwell on His holy hill, has bled and died on my behalf, and rose after 3 days in a borrowed tomb to redeem my soul and place me on the holy hill of the Lord Almighty.

I don’t have to work my way up the mountain.
I don’t have to live in despair in the valley.

Jesus – the Savior Himself – fulfills the law for me so that I can enter the presence of the Most High God and be declared clean & righteous in His eyes. And so I am.

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May 19 2016
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The Psalms

psalm 1

psalm 1

I love the psalms. A pastor once said that the psalms are where theology and emotion meet. I’ve written about that before and the specific psalm he preached on, but now I’m excited to read through them, one by one, and get all theologically emotional with you.

So, here goes.

#1.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields it fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

I grew up by a river. Not like, in a van down by the river, but close enough that I was in the water quite a bit. It’s not hard for me to picture what a tree planted by streams of water looks like. And I love that picture.

Trees by the river are huge, you guys. The roots are gargantuan and loop around to secure themselves in the ground. Sometimes you will come across a tree that looks like it’s about to topple over into the river, but it doesn’t. ‘Cause, roots.

I want to be like those trees. Not necessarily the ones that are just a bit off shore, firmly planted, going nowhere for a long, long time. But like the ones that, even when they look like they’re about to tip right over into the water, they don’t – they are clinging so tightly that they will not be moved. I want the inclination of my heart to be so focused on God that my roots are looping and digging in anyway possible to stay secure in my Maker.

The word “delight” here means, “desire; a valuable thing; the root idea is to incline toward something.”

This is my prayer through this series. That I would incline toward Jesus. That He would become a more valuable thing to me than He ever has been.

Day 1 down, team. This is exciting.

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