“I will sing of steadfast love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will make music. I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.” – Psalm 101:1-3 (ESV).
What does it mean to be a worshipper of the LORD… where it is a central aspect of your identity? What is the difference between momentarily engaging in worship and living a worship lifestyle? In Psalm 101, David presses into the heart posture of the continual, life-long worshipper. To be one who sings and makes music to the LORD, your secret, inmost being must first be aligned with the heart of God and the kingdom of heaven. To be the one whose life is a pure realization of Psalm 101:1, the heart posture and behaviors of the following seven verses must also permeate your life. Throughout this densely packed psalm, David highlights three characteristics of those who live the worship lifestyle. God’s worshipers 1) actively ponder His way, 2) long for His presence, and 3) hate what He hates.
Actively Ponder His Way:
Jesus said that obedience is the result of love for Him (Jn 14:15). Ministering to the LORD begins with pondering the way that is blameless (Ps. 101:2), and it is realized when you identify and walk in that way. Faith is stirred in the pondering of the blameless and holy way, and obedience blesses the heart of God when you choose to be faithful to His way, His path, and His heart in your everyday life. To know the boundaries of this way, ask the Holy Spirit to show you the narrow path set before you. When you live submitted to the LORD’s will, the boundary lines of your path fall in pleasant places (Ps. 16:6). Your beautiful inheritance is the opportunity to dwell with the LORD and minister to Him in all aspects of your life. To remain in the way that is blameless is to remain in blessing the heart of the LORD. Those who continually deny themselves and take up their crosses daily, abiding in the vine of Christ Jesus, will dwell with the LORD. He promises that those who are His faithful ministers, lovers, and servants, from a place of rest in Jesus and not from the striving of the flesh, will be brought to His holy mountain and made joyful in His house of prayer (Is. 56:6-7). When you live on the mountain of the LORD’s presence, you’ll find it increasingly difficult either to continue entertaining earthly thoughts or to remain on the mountain. Fortunately, you cannot do both, and you must sacrifice one for the other. Those who choose to ponder the blameless way choose the mountain, and those who choose the mountain choose deeper revelation in the blameless way.
Pondering the way that is blameless requires integrity of heart and discipline to cut out all worthless distractions. The richest worship is that which you’ll give to the LORD when no man’s eyes are upon you. It is possible to follow the rules of the law within your house without the heart connection to God. However, when your heart is one with Jesus’ heart, you will walk in His blameless way, not in any fleshly attempt to earn connection with Him, but because you love Him. How significant it is to not only walk with integrity within your house, choosing all the right actions and obedience, but to do so from the deepest places of love in your heart! Ask the Holy Spirit to connect your heart with His and renew your thoughts and ways to mirror God’s (Is. 55:8). As you yield yourself to the leading of the Spirit and actively choose to walk in rhythms of setting your mind on the things above, you will find the glamour of worthless things fade as your heart’s appetite is refined by spiritual discipline (Col. 3:2). Do you wish to let no distraction catch your heart and to live as one being refined in the lifestyle of worship? By the help of the Holy Spirit, actively ponder the LORD’s way.
Long for His Presence:
There’s only one question posed in the entirety of Psalm 101. This question highlights the focus for everything else written in the poem: a longing to be one with the LORD. In Psalm 101:2, David asks, “Oh when will you come to me?” David’s longing for the presence of the LORD explains his willingness to commit to the lifestyle depicted in the rest of Psalm 101. To dwell with the LORD requires faithfulness and surrender. Should your worship not stem from a faithful heart, you will have intermittent opportunities to pass by the LORD. The glory of His presence will rest upon the ark of your heart for moments, but it won’t remain should you choose to keep one foot in the way of the blameless and one foot in the way of the selfish. When you allow yourself to be surrendered to the Holy Spirit and led into fully encompassing faithfulness, your daily life will change from passing experiences of heart-stirring interactions with Jesus to the permanent dwelling of Jesus’ heart-filling presence stirring you to 24/7 worship through obedience.
Ask the LORD to make your love for Him deeper than what you can express in your mind. His words of love will impact your heart far more profoundly than your mind (Deut. 6:6). If love for the LORD doesn’t capture you at your core, you will find yourself distant from His presence. Should you choose not to walk with integrity of heart, you’ll find your heart arrogantly wandering from the way of Christ into the way of self. If you do not guard what comes into your eyes with no compromise for the sake of love, the direction of your gaze will turn inward when it should have been turned upward. God will not endure this. Far better than we can comprehend, He knows the destructive nature of the haughty look and the arrogant heart, and He will not stop cultivating the heart of a faithful, blameless minister within you so that you may dwell together. Will you turn your eyes and your heart toward Him to let the transforming work take place? Will you long for Him to come to you?
Hate What He Hates:
Should you be one who worships only the LORD, all your love will be for Him. You will not love the things He hates. There is no such thing as lukewarm worship. Should you find yourself labeling your own worship of Jesus as lukewarm, it means you are actually directing your worship to another. When the enemy stirs the flesh with temptations to pursue things the LORD has not granted you to pursue, don’t be deceived; these pursuits are a stain upon the pure relationship the LORD desires to maintain with you. Do not set before your eyes anything that is worthless (Ps. 101:3). Ask the LORD what things in your life are worthless as He defines them by His word and by His Spirit, rather than as you, others in the church, or the world would define them. We cannot worship the convenience of a comfortable life with the company of an agreeable conscience. Our worship must be sacrificial, pure, and whole-hearted. The moment it doesn’t seem to cost you something, the moment you don’t sense the purification-cutting work of the hand of the LORD, or the moment you find your heart unchallenged by the written words of God, ask the LORD to teach you by His Holy Spirit where the Psalm 101 “anything that is worthless” has become “most things that are worthless” or where “nothing of evil” has become “nothing of immediate, overbearing offense to my flesh.”
We cannot both love the world and love the Father (1 Jn. 2:15). It cannot be said of us that we avoid yet tolerate the works of those who fall away from the LORD. Psalm 101:3 says, “I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.” Jesus’ blood was shed to cleanse stains. Furthermore, the cleansing of the garment is meant to influence the habits of the wearer. The dirt stains won’t cling to us if we’re no longer living in the dirt. To genuinely love our neighbors as ourselves, we must hate the works of evil that entice the heart of man and overcome that evil with good (Rom. 12:21). By the cleansing blood of Jesus and the mind of His Holy Spirit, we are gifted a treasured relationship in which we can live out pure worship and be lights to the world. When you hate what the LORD hates, you’ll find yourself seeking first the kingdom of heaven and God’s righteousness (Mt. 6:33).
A Closing Prayer:
Father, thank you for the gift you’ve given us as your children to worship you in Spirit and in truth, and to do so in untainted purity by the blood of your Son Jesus. May the church catch hold of the value of living the worship lifestyle, where there is no space for compromise in sin or worthless temptations because the fullness of our every moment is devoted to the blameless way, the pursuit of your presence, and the hatred of what you hate. We know we cannot live this without your Holy Spirit’s empowerment. Thank you for passages like Psalm 101 that give us clear direction on what to pray for and how to surrender to the action of your Spirit in our lives. In purity, may songs of steadfast love and justice rise from the yielded lives of a tender bride, motivated by one longing: the nearness and glory of the bridegroom. May the songs be a sweet sound to your ears. In Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
