A Blameless Heart

August 17

(Psalm 101:1-8 NIV) "I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O Lord, I will sing praise. {2} I will be careful to lead a blameless life-- when will you come to me? I will walk in my house with blameless heart. {3} I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me. {4} Men of perverse heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with evil. {5} 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. {6} 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. {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."

(Philippians 2:12-15 NIV) “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, {13} for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. {14} Do everything without complaining or arguing, {15} so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” We often use this phrase to excuse less than sterling behavior. And while it may be true that we cannot be perfect, we can be blameless. God’s word tells us that we can grow into blameless people. If we are careful, we can lead a blameless life. We can shine like stars. If we will “work out” in our salvation to the point of trembling, our complaining, arguing, lying, slandering, and deceiving will continually decrease and can eventually be eliminated. We will need to change the crowd we hang around with, as our character is adversely affected by those of bad character. We will need to cease looking upon vile things and turn our eyes upon Jesus. If we will do these things as we immerse ourselves in God’s word, we can be changed and become more and more like Jesus. We may never be perfect, but we can become blameless. Who in their right mind would not want that? -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day