#DailyDevotion Who Can Live On God’s Holy Hill? Jesus, Just Jesus.
Psalm 15 O LORD, who may come to stay in Your tabernacle? Who may live on Your holy hill? 2If you live perfectly, do what is right, and tell the truth from your heart. 3If you don’t use your tongue to do wrong to another or bring shame on your neighbor. 4You despise one whom God rejects but honor those who fear the LORD. When you swear, you don’t change it even if it hurts you. 5You don’t take interest on money you loan or take a bribe against an innocent person. If you do these things, you will never fail.
Well who is going to be able to stay in the LORD’s tabernacle and live on His holy hill if these are the standards? Who lives perfectly, does what is right and tells the truth from the heart at all times? Who doesn’t use their tongue to do wrong and shame their neighbor? Who despises whom God despises and honors those who fear God? Who doesn’t break promises? Who doesn’t take interest on money or a bribe against an innocent person (ok, maybe this last one we may have some hope). There is no one but Jesus Christ of Nazareth who does all these things, all the time, without fail, from the heart, in the right spirit as the LORD our God demands. As the previous psalm confessed, “There is no one who does good, no not one.” Thank God, Jesus has done all these things for us, in our place. He has opened up the heavenly tabernacle, the holy hill, the New Jerusalem to us by his life, death and resurrection. Now if you believe this, you are not going to be just sitting on your hands and living licentiously. You are going to want to live your life as the Holy Spirit describes here. Now what does it mean here to live perfectly, doing right and telling the truth from the heart? I think the rest of the psalm describes what that is like.
First, with the help of the Holy Spirit you are going to take control of your tongue. James says in chapter 3, “2All of us sin much. If anyone doesn’t sin in what he says, he’s a perfect man who can control his whole body.” So what we are being asked to do is to keep the 8th commandment which Luther explains as such: We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him, [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything. True, not always easy to do, but we can practice it.
Despising the one whom God despises and honoring those whom He honors seems to be a little tougher as we also try to listen to Jesus’ command not to judge others. Teaching false doctrine is something we should despise and teaching true doctrine is something we should honor. To despise false teachers is to not listen to them. To honor true teachers is to listen to them. Is that it? Paul tells us we should not associate with those who call themselves Christians but who live contrary to the way of life he has handed down to us. None of us is perfect, but we should confess our sins and admit our faults when we do sin. Here we are speaking of those who have been corrected but refuse to admit their faults and say their sin is not sin.
Jesus told us not to swear. So too the Psalmist tells us to keep our oaths even if it hurts. We can do this with the help of the Holy Spirit. But better not to swear at all but be a man of your word. We are called to not charge interest in loans to those who borrow from us. Certainly he has in mind money loaned to family and friends, fellow Christians. It is best just to give it to them without hope of ever receiving it back.
If you do these things, you will be doing well. It’s like when James tells the Gentiles in Acts, “Don’t be sexually immoral, eat blood or food that is strangled.” The rest will come.
Heavenly Father, grant us faith to trust in Jesus and then give us your Holy Spirit that you may live out your life in our lives so we may be pleasing to you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.