ReadingThru: Psalm 89, Psalm 96, Psalm 100-101, Psalm 105, Psalm 132
Today’s Reading: Psalm 89, Psalm 96, Psalm 100-101, Psalm 105, Psalm 132
I don’t usually cut and paste such large sections, but David’s Psalm 101 got me thinking:
I will sing of lovingkindness and justice,
To You, O LORD, I will sing praises.
I will give heed to the blameless way
When will You come to me?
I’m good with praising God, asking Him for a personal encounter…
I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart.
I will set no worthless thing before my eyes;
Staying focused on God in even the mundane moments, avoiding distractions, good…
I hate the work of those who fall away;
It shall not fasten its grip on me.
A perverse heart shall depart from me;
I will know no evil.
Avoiding evil, can’t argue there…
Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy;
No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure.
Wait a minute! Destroying slanders and arrogant people!
My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me;
He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me.
Favoring the faithful and blameless seems OK…
He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house;
He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me.
Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land,
So as to cut off from the city of the LORD all those who do iniquity.
Destroying people again!
The thing to remember here is that God, through David, is more trying to get a point across than to suggest that we, as contemporary Christians should be killing neighbors for slander. Like Jesus’s sugestion that we pluck out an eye ( Matthew 18:9 ) rather than sin, David is saying that we should be willing to go to extremes to avoid sin and prevent the distructive influence of iniquity around us and in our homes.
I had a good Christian friend who was fond of saying, “a fanatic is anyone one the believes a little more than we do.”
The question is, who sees us as a fanatic? How far are we willing to go to prevent iniquity from corrupting our households? I’m not sure I would be destroying anyone, but, is tossing them out the door too fanatical?
