Psalm 15
1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?
Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,
speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
3 Those who refuse to gossip
or harm their neighbors
or speak evil of their friends.
4 Those who despise flagrant sinners,
and honor the faithful followers of the Lord,
and keep their promises even when it hurts.
5 Those who lend money without charging interest,
and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.
Such people will stand firm forever.
(NLT)<\/p>\n
I have heard the comment ‘Nobody’s perfect’ so many times in my life, and I realised how much a cop-out this is when I was reading this Psalm. If I don’t think I can reach perfection, I will never strive to get it – and the worst bit of that is that I will feel content, or maybe even\u00c2\u00a0comfortable, in my failure!<\/p>\n
Yet this Psalm tells me that I have to be perfect. And I know what many Christians say – “We are sinners, so we cannot be perfect.” They then say that we can become perfect by repenting and seeking forgiveness. The blood of Christ washes us clean. But that is a cop-out too! My Bible tells me that all have <\/em><\/strong>sinned, not <\/em><\/strong>that we should keep doing it!<\/p>\n This Psalm tells me that, if I am to worship God, I have to live a blameless life and do what is right, I have to speak the truth, not gossip, not harm my neighbour (anyone) and not slander my friends. It doesn’t say that when I do anything wrong I can seek forgiveness, then worship. I have to strive for perfection.<\/p>\n And if you say, “Well that’s all from the Old Testament,” or “Only God is perfect,” then let me point you to Matthew 5:48, where Jesus tells me, ‘But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.’<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have heard the comment ‘Nobody’s perfect’ so many times in my life, and I realised how much a cop-out this is when I was reading Psalm 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,16,17,32,34,38,42,55,59,61,62,65,70,71,78],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","tag-blameless","tag-blood","tag-christ","tag-failure","tag-father","tag-god","tag-heart","tag-lord","tag-matthew","tag-old-testament","tag-perfection","tag-psalm","tag-sincere","tag-sinner","tag-worship","category-5","description-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfWaLo-b","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7072,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2022\/09\/just-thinking-what\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":0},"title":"3 – Just thinking what?","author":"Robert Pender","date":"30\/09\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=\"7073\" img_size=\"full\" alignment=\"center\" style=\"vc_box_shadow_3d\"][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Most of the time, all is calm, then I'm in a bit of a storm. I was never a great fan of big dippers and so I always kept away from them. The trouble with this big dipper is that it comes to get me! I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6120,"url":"https:\/\/pender.org.uk\/index.php\/2021\/01\/lets-start-at-the-very-beginning\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":1},"title":"Let’s start at the very beginning","author":"Robert Pender","date":"29\/01\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]You might not agree with what I'm going to say, but that in itself will just prove my point. Let me begin by saying that I disagree. In fact, we all disagree. We disagree about politics, about religion, about football teams, about diets, fashion, music, money. 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