None of Us

Proverbs is a great book to read, but I'm glad it's over. It's nice to have a little variety in one's reading material! :)

This morning I read Psalm 15. It's only 5 verses long, and often when I run across a chapter that short, I'll go ahead and read another. But I didn't need to do that this morning. The psalm opens like this: "LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless" (Ps. 15:1-2a). Ouch. "Blameless"? That doesn't include me. Reading the next few phrases hurts even more. "He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman" (Ps. 15:2-3).

The last few days I have not been very disciplined in my prayer life. And I can tell. You can read the Scriptures all you want, but if you don't ask God to bless your application of it and give you the strength and power to follow what you read, then you're headed for trouble. Conversely, if you pray but aren't reading your Bible, you're shutting yourself off from many of God's responses to your prayers. Anyway, it's easy to know what you're supposed to do, but it's another thing entirely to do it. And here's the thing: we cannot live up to God's standard of our own accord. It's simply not possible. James said, "We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check...No man can tame the tongue" (James 3:2, 8a).

Only one human was ever perfect. And thankfully, He made up for our sin. In fact, He erased it completely, once and for all. We will stumble all our lives. We will never become perfect in this life. But we are called to follow Christ's example, and the way to do that is to ask God to empower the Holy Spirit in us to develop the fruits of the Spirit: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23a). Another thought: When you ask God to purify your heart, you'd better be prepared for it to sting.

I'll close with this verse that I ran across in James that talks about heavenly wisdom--quite appropriate after finishing up Proverbs. "But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness" (James 3:17-18, emphasis added).