Commitment to Right Living

Commitment to Right Living (Psalm 101)

I was sitting in the car waiting for my wife yesterday afternoon. Buying flowers isn't one of my favorite activities. While waiting, I decided to read some Scripture from the New Testament with the Psalms that I keep in the car for hospital calls. Without any particular destination in the Psalms, I landed at Psalm 101.

After reading it, I knew I'd found my thoughts for this weekend's Freedom Fighters. They follow on the thoughts I shared last weekend. The psalmist reminds us that we make choices that either keep us in tune with God's plan or lead us into danger. It strikes me that the Lord is really pushing us to think about how we commit ourselves to right living-safe living.

The psalmist says in vs. 2, "I will behave myself wisely in a perfect (blameless) way . . . . I will walk within my house with a perfect (blameless) heart." He chooses to live in a way that honors the Lord he loves. As I read it, I admired the David's intentionality. He was proactive in pursuing life as God designed it. Instead of going with the flow, he made the decision to live with integrity before his God.

Continue with the psalm, and you'll discover more about his resolve and the steps he took to keep his commitment to right living. In vs. 3 he says "I will set nothing wicked before my eyes." David, the psalmist, tells the Lord that he will intentionally pay attention to what enters his vision. He understood that the eyes are the gateway to the soul. He knew he couldn't be too careful. Life hasn't changed in all these hundreds of years since David. How careful are we to "set nothing wicked before [our] eyes?

Notice one more commitment David made to God. "I will not know wickedness." (vs. 4) I wonder if the Apostle Paul might have had this statement in mind when he wrote Romans 16:19. Do you remember it from last week? Paul told the Roman Christians that he wanted them to be "simple concerning evil." David committed himself to the absence of wickedness; he decided that wickedness wouldn't destroy his life.

It seems to me that David made some key decisions about righteousness and wickedness that you and I can make. Don't worry about what is past.
Just know that from today forward you can intentionally choose blamelessness. You and I can choose to refuse wickedness an entry into our lives. It's our choice. May God help us to make the right choice!
- Pastor John Strain is Senior Pastor of First Baptist Toms River

God's WORD for YOU: 2 Chronicles 28-29; John 17

Think about this: Do you have a hunger for God? If we don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. If we are full of what the world offers, then perhaps a fast might express, or even increase, our soul's appetite for God. Between the dangers of self-denial and self-indulgence is the path of pleasant pain called fasting. -- John Piper