A Heart like David

"O LORD, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; he swears to his own hurt and does not change; he does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken."

~ Psalm 15  

 Howdy! Well this has been quite a busy month so far and we are only 8 days in. But, before going to bed tonight I decided to read the two Psalms for today and both of them ... wow! God has convicted me on who I am to be and some major character flaws within myself. It is a little after 11 pm that I am starting to write this and neeeeeeeeeed sleep but I wanted to let this soak in to not only me but anyone who might read this. (I am planning on posting about Psalm 16 as well not sure it will be tonight though). Anyway... to get on with the story.

O LORD, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill? 
David asks a question here, which is a very valid question. Who is allowed to abide in the dwelling place of God? Who gets to dwell at His holy hill? Sadly I have not ever just sat down to contemplate such a deep thought. To me, this is a loaded question because it means that most likely the answer will describe someone that is ... well... not me.  But just as David asks the question, he gives an answer.

He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. 
Well, the word integrity is from the Greek word tummah which means "simplicity," "soundness," "completeness," and is also rendered as "upright," and "perfection." Uh that is a packed word. That word means complete and is rendered as perfection. So the first thing seen here is those that may abide in His tent and dwell at His holy hill are to walk in completeness/perfection. Hmm ... well that isn't hard to do, YEAH RIGHT! The next thing we see is that those who may abide and reside are those who walk with works of righteousness. Now, in case you are unaware, righteousness means justification. Justification is opposed to condemnation. Then we see that those who are able to abide and reside have to speak truth in their heart. So 1. perfection, 2. not condemning, and 3. speaking truth within the heart.
This makes me very thankful that I follow the Lord that paid for all of my sin: past, present, and future. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Galatians 2:20. Christ has exchanged His record for those who follow Him. So, if you are a follower of Christ, God looks at you as though you are holy. You have the blood of Jesus Christ on you and have been claimed as one of His. "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1. Those of us following Christ are not to condemn others just as Christ does not condemn us. We are set free from the law of sin and death. He has made us perfect in His eyes and He chooses not to condemn us. The last part here (speaking truth in his heart) I can only take it for what it says. I looked up commentaries and couldn't find anything. But when I read that it makes me think of "This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." Joshua 1:8. That is a whole different blog post waiting to happen, just saying ... forget how much I love that verse. But think about it, it just reminds me how much I need to be putting God's word into myself. Feeding myself with God's word and less of the world (the book of James has quite a load to say about the world). So those that get to abide in His tent and dwell at His holy hill show perfection, no condemnation, and a constant self in pouring of God's word. 
But wait, there is more!


He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; he swears to his own hurt and does not change; he does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. 
Not going to lie, looking up some of these words I see how much I have to learn. These words hold so much weight and I can barely even grasp the smallest of concepts here. I do, however, understand enough to tell you that this is an awesome yet weighty piece of scripture. This tells that those who are allowed to abide in His tent and dwell at His holy hill do not slander others with their tongue and does not do evil to others and the Lord does not find fault in them. He honors those who fear the LORD, which makes me think he respects his elders (usually they are the ones that fear the Lord and live their lives accordingly). When he loans out money he does not gain from the repayment, doesn't charge others interest for borrowing which also makes me think he is a very willing giver. It also says that he does not take a bribe against the innocent. So to be one that gets to abide in His tent and gets to dwell at His holy hill, this is what it looks like. The man described here lives his life with eternity in mind. This challenges me because it shows me that I do not defalt to eternal minded thinking. Just meaning that my first thoughts are not considering others as higher than myself but I seek self gain more than that of others. This is not a requirement but these are qualifications to some degree to dwell with the King at His holy hill and abiding in His tent. This passage just shows me how much I have to learn and how much I truly need my mind to be transformed daily (Romans 12:2). Sadly, I have to admit that my life doesn't match up to this fully. But God is still shaping me. Every day is another day to make choices to live for Him and to choose to live this life building up heavenly treasure and thinking about eternity. As a girl I struggle with the things that escape my very lips. (Be looking for another post called A Force to be Reckoned With sharing what scripture has to say about taming our tongue). Anyway, there is so much hope in the next line of the Psalm.

He who does these things will never be shaken.
All of this is concluded wonderfully with this statement. God makes us a promise, that if we live our lives selflessly for Him, putting others before ourselves we will never be shaken. All through the Psalms there are passages like this one. Passages that say that He will not let our foot slip and passages that say that we will not be put to shame in following Him. This is an awesome hope to hold on to. Ohhhhhh such a sweet thought!

This was David's heart, to be like God. He did not want to be God but he wanted to be like Him. We were made in the likeness of God. We were made like our Daddy and David wanted to be like his heavenly Daddy. Who could blame him, with a dad like that? Scripture tells us that David was a man after God's own heart. God loved him dearly. In an earlier post I worte about having a Heart like Hannah. David also had a heart to grow closer to the God he loves (present tense because David lives on with Him for all eternity).