Psalm 5: 1-4,12

Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation.  Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.  My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up.  For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.  For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield.  (KJV)

In Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby, one of the daily devotional books I read throughout the year, he writes this statement about two different views of God in his January second devotional Woe Is Me. “An exalted view of God brings a clear view of the sinful nature within me and a realistic view of darkness of sin.  A diminished view of God brings a reduced concern for sin and an inflated view of self.”  In this devotional he discuss how we need to be careful when we compare our righteousness to the righteousness of the ungodly.  This type of righteousness is one that has a diminished view of God to create an inflated view of self.  The more time we spend time in front of the mirror of God’s Word the more the Holy Spirit convicts of our sinfulness. 

An exalted view of God grows within us as we abide in him and keep his commandments.  David realized the importance of having an exalted view of God.  In Psalm 119:9-16 David gives us these instructions on how to live a clean or pure life: 

1. By guarding it according to thy word.
2. With my whole heart will I seek thee.
3. Let me not wander from thy commandments.
4. I have laid up thy word in my heart.
5. LORD, teach me thy statutes.
6. I declare all the ordinances of thy mouth.
7. I delight in the way of thy testimonies more than riches.
8. I will meditate on thy precepts.
9. I will fix my eyes on thy ways.
10. I will delight in thy statutes and will not forget thy word.

The more we stay in the Word and study God’s commands, his statues, his ordinances, and precepts the more we shall see our sinfulness and the holiness of God.  It is only when we truly grasp the exalted holiness of Christ and his redemptive sacrifice that we see the total darkness of the sinfulness of the nature that is deeply embedded within us.  Once we reach this stage we can cry out as Paul wrote in Romans 8:24 “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death.”  Thanks be to God who gave us his son that whosoever believe on him will be saved. 

Once we grasp how much God’s displeasure with the sinfulness of man the more we will grasp the true understanding of His love for his creation.  Once we abandon the way of our sinful nature and set our focus on knowing the Lord we will begin to see how the Lord blesses the righteous; with favor and provides a shield around the righteous.  David writes in Psalms 37:25 “I have been young and now am I old:  yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken”.  Like David I can say “once I was young and now I am old, but one thing is clear I now realized how much the Lord takes care of His own.”  So in everything we do stay in God’s word and seek to follow God’s way and not those of the ungodly.