No Blame Now
Opening Prayer
“I will sing of your love and justice; to You, Lord, I will sing praise. I will be careful to lead a blameless life” (1).
Read Psalm 101
1 I will sing of your love and justice;
to you, Lord, I will sing praise.
2 I will be careful to lead a blameless life—
when will you come to me?
I will conduct the affairs of my house
with a blameless heart.
3 I will not look with approval
on anything that is vile.
I hate what faithless people do;
I will have no part in it.
4 The perverse of heart shall be far from me;
I will have nothing to do with what is evil.
5 Whoever slanders their neighbor in secret,
I will put to silence;
whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart,
I will not tolerate.
6 My eyes will be on the faithful in the land,
that they may dwell with me;
the one whose walk is blameless
will minister to me.
7 No one who practices deceit
will dwell in my house;
no one who speaks falsely
will stand in my presence.
8 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.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Take a few minutes to identify negative actions for which you are to blame. Ask God to forgive you for these.This psalm is about living a blameless life. For human beings, as we stand, this is impossible, of course. We can only turn to Jesus and accept his offer to take the blame, as I hope we all have just done! However, there is more to a life lived close to the Lord than just seeking forgiveness. Today’s reading provides a wonderful guide for a life in which God is able to come to us (2) as we long for him to do.
A great start is to sing his praises (1). Then we are advised to take care in and around our homes. The images we view and the people we associate with have a direct bearing on the extent to which God can draw close to us. David did not envisage output from the internet when he penned verse 3, but “no vile thing” makes exactly the same sense after 3,000 years. His advice about how we treat our neighbors is up-to- date too. It seems that living a blameless life does not mean cutting ourselves off in holy isolation; rather, we are to thoughtfully challenge standards which are clearly not God’s own.
Apply
Ask God to show you how you can walk in holiness in your personal life, home, job and community.
Closing prayer
Thank You, God, that You have taken the blame for my mistakes and wickedness on Yourself.
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