I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise.  I will be careful to lead a blameless life– when will you come to me?  I will walk in my house with blameless heart.  I will set before my eyes no vile thing.  The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me.  Men of perverse heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with evil.  Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, him will I not endure.  My eyes will be on the faithful in the land that they may dwell with me; he whose walk is blameless will minister to me.  No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.  Every morning I will put to silence all the wicked in the land; I will cut off every evildoer from the city of the LORD.  (NIV)

This Psalm written by David reflects the way in which he tried to rule as King of Israel.  The key to the way he ruled and lived his life was to live a blameless life.  The word blameless can be defined as: free of guilt, not subject to blame, of irreproachable character, an unimpeachable reputation.  Blameless does not mean sinless, nor does it imply perfection.  A blameless life style is a characteristic of one’s life that others encounter during the course of our daily activity.  Living a blameless life before others is not easy and usually is very difficult.  Because the perception of living a blameless life to others is viewed by our actions and not our motives a blameless life style is very difficult to show to others.  Unlike our physical appearance which people can see, our motives are not visible and must be weighed over time.  So how do I groom my life to be blameless?  The key is similar to the way I get my physical self-ready every day.  As I must get up each morning and make my physical appearance presentable before I venture out of the house each morning, I must also examine my heart to make sure that is it blameless before God and man.  As you read this psalm considered the following examples that are in the Bible for us to model our walk after:

This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. (Genesis 6:9)

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.  (Genesis 17:1)

I (David) have been blameless before him and have kept myself from sin. (II Samuel 22:24)     In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. (Job 1:8)

As I study these four men I realized that their blameless life style is the result of a living a life of integrity.   One key to this is to eliminate anything that causes me to keep secrets.  In our process of communicating with others we usually try to filter out the differences between what the other person is saying and that they really mean.  In our process of communication we must stop and examine the true motive behind our words and actions.  Is what I say really what I mean, or is there a hidden agenda behind my words?  So one of the first steps in living a blameless life is the process of eliminating all secret motives from my words and my actions.

Another step would be to remove all the vile things from my life.  The word vile is defined as loathsome, disgusting, unpleasant, or objectionable.  It is also used to describe behavior as contemptibly, miserably poor and degrading, wretched, morally depraved and wicked.  In Psalm one this is one of the two steps in living a blessed life.  The first step is to move toward God and seek him, and the second step is to stay away from those things against God’s way (vile things).

The final step is to read and mediate on God’s Word daily.  Just read Psalm 119 for this truth to set in.  The Word of God will lead you to live a blameless life.

It is amazing how God has embedded simple truths in his Word.  As I study this psalm the words of verses nineteen through twenty-three speaks of our society today.

¹⁹At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped an idol cast from metal. ²⁰ They exchanged their Glory for an image of a bull, which eats grass. ²¹ They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, ²² miracles in the land of Ham and awesome deeds by the Red Sea. ²³ So he said he would destroy them had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them.

The event that took placed at Horeb has been taking place in the course of history since the fall of man.  Even in the very strong holds of religion itself we see God being exchanged for other gods.  When you read Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” you must realize that this is the first of the simple truths that God reveals to men from the scriptures.  This truth is that God started the process of the heavens and the earth by creating something out of nothing.  This truth that God is a creator should shape and mold you understanding of everything that surrounds you.  For without God nothing would or could exist.   Therefore to gain an understand of the world in which we live we must recognize God as creator.  That is not the case with society today.  In an article from the Houston Chronicle (6/21/2009) Opportunities to Fellowship With Other Humanists in Houston the author Hux (Brian Surratt) stated “The HOH seems to be getting stronger. I hope the options for humanists continue to grow overtime to include, say, more activities for families who desire to raise ethical children in a naturalistic tradition”.

What is a humanist?  Just go to their website for the answer.   In the Humanist Manifesto III, the American Humanist Association outlined the following basic principles of Humanism:

• Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. • Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. • Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. • Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. • Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. • Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness.

At first glance these principles might sound great.  However, a farther look at the Humanism definition of Humanism it self states “Humanism is a worldview which says that reason and science are the best ways to understand the world around us, and that dignity and compassion should be the basis for how you act toward someone else.  Humanism is nontheistic. By this, we don’t mean to say that there is no God. Instead, we say that there is no proof for the existence of God, any gods, the supernatural or an afterlife.  Therefore, we take very seriously the idea that “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves.” We are living the only life we’ll have, in the only world we know about. The responsibility for the choices we make are ours and ours alone.”  This statement is a reflection of exactly what the Israelites did here at Horeb, and what Paul describes in Romans chapter one as the condition that mankind now suffers.  Then we look at the last two verses of this Psalm we see the psalmist requests to God: save us and gather us from the nations.  If one of the fundamental belief of Humanism is that God does not save us, only we can; then I can not abide in their company.    However, like Moses may I stand in the breach between God and the Humanist and pray that they may see the light offered to them through Christ.