Thanks, Clint,
Here are some thoughts from Psalms 100 and 101
Psalm 100 may have been a formal call to worship to the people, but it also rings of the bursting forth of a heart in love with God. It is short, and my kids and I all had it memorized in very short order. Here is the NIV version, which, in this case, is the one I like best:
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanks giving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
AMEN!!!!
Psalm 101 has a very different tone. David here is proclaiming how he intends his walk with the Lord to be -- a walk that will honor the Lord.
His intentions are to 'lead a blameless life.' He lists, then, what he feels that will -- at least partially -- entail:
1. "I will set before my eyes no vile thing."
In our terms, this could include magazines brought into the house, pictures or posters on the walls, videos rented, etc.
2. The deeds of faithless men I hate;
they will not cling to me.
There is to be no joining with the faithless in what they do. This harkens back to the opening of Psalm 1 and forward to Paul's injunction against light being put in partnership with darkness.
3. Men of perverse heart shall be far from me;
I will have nothing to do with evil.
This brought to my mind immediately the discussion in one of the forums here about Halloween. One of the excuses used for participation was that 'evil is around every corner' anyway, so why worry about this particular night? But David, a man after God's heart, said plainly, "I will have nothing to do with evil." So maybe there are some corners we shouldn't turn...
4. Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, him will I put to silence;
We have legal recourses against public slander; David was just as much against it in secret. It is behind the scenes where the power and political games are played, and David was evidently going to have none of it there, either.
5. Whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, him will I not endure.
We can't stop proud, haughty people from being that way, but we don't have to put up with them in our homes! We do not have to stay around them.
6. No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house;
no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.
David is not only banishing falsehood from being around him personally, but also from being a resident in his house. In making room for the Lord, it has to be understood that Satan, a liar and the father of it, must be shoved out completely.
The Psalm closes, interestingly, with something only Christ Himself will be able to do when He takes David's throne:
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.
As well, in the middle of the Psalm, we find this:
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.
And although this may have been David's intention, it is something which can most probably only be fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. So althought Psalm 101 is not considered a Messianic Psalm, I think there may be some elements of it in there.
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