Psalm 101
I Will Walk with Integrity
A Psalm of David.
1I will sing of steadfast love and justice;
to you, O LORD, I will make music.
2I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
3I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
4 A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.
5Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy.
Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart
I will not endure.
6I will look with favor on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
he who walks in the way that is blameless
shall minister to me.
7No one who practices deceit
shall dwell in my house;
no one who utters lies
shall continue before my eyes.
8 Morning by morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
cutting off all the evildoers
from the city of the LORD.
Psalm 101 is what I like to call the “Television Psalm”.
As you read these verses from Psalm 101, think of how they apply to television, movies, Internet entertainment.
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
Does the amount of time and the choices you regarding the entertainment you allow into your home reflect the resolve of this phrase?
I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
How much of real value are you setting before your eyes when you turn on the television, rent a movie, log on to that web site?
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
Does the work of those who proclaim their distance from God in the movies or television programmes they make cling to you in what you watch?
A perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will know nothing of evil.
Do we allow perversity into our homes via the TV or movies or web sites that normally we would have nothing to do with?
Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly
I will destroy.
This verse is not encouraging us to kill those who slander. But it certainly does mean that at the very least we should not welcome the gossip and character assassination that passes as “talk shows” into our homes via TV and computer entertainment. What David found shameful to be practised in secret is now considered to fit for public display.
Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart
I will not endure.
Endure them? We invite them in, encourage them and get disappointed with them if they do not deliver.
No one who practices deceit
shall dwell in my house;
But they do dwell in so many of our houses don’t they? And we invite them in and ignore other more valuable things in order to hear them. They live in our homes even though if they were in the flesh we would never allow the lies and deceit that they promote to reside in our homes.
no one who utters lies
shall continue before my eyes.
But continuing before our eyes is precisely what the television and computer demand from us.
Morning by morning I will destroy
all the wicked in the land,
cutting off all the evildoers
from the city of the LORD.
Remember that this is King David talking who, as King of a theocracy had the responsibility to ensure that the Law of God was the law of the Kingdom. He was speaking as the legal authority of the land. But we can “cut off” the wicked in the land by turning them off, tuning in to something more in keeping with holiness and spending our time more wisely and productively.
Recent Comments