Psalm 15:1 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? 2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. 3 who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. 4 in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change; 5 who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved. David asks God about the people who can dwell with God. David is raising a great question, who does God look upon as "righteous." Who is right in God's eyes? David lists a number of qualities that he believes causes a person to fit in the category of "righteous." No slander of others, do no evil to your neighbor, and does not take up a reproach against a friend. The list goes on. Micah, a prophet who spoke many years after David said, "God has told you, o man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you; to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Years later Jesus says there are two great commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." In the times we are living through it seems many people are exhibiting these qualities and asking God for help and reaching out to help their neighbors. I love hearing the stories about people helping one another and I always love talking with people who are seeking God's help for comfort and assistance in difficult times. The hope I have is two-fold, that people will seek God more in the future than they have in the past, and I include me in that statement. And I hope that people will stop the slander of others, the doing of evil, and taking up a reproach against their friends, and I include me in that comment as well. You and I want to blame someone for this event we have going in our world. We hear someone say something or see someone do something and our first reaction is, "they are not doing the right thing." Whether we are criticizing our government leaders or making a comment about the college students on spring break, ignoring the "shelter in place" commands that have been levied. We want to make our comments, make them strong enough so people can hear our passion, and we want someone to do something so this whole thing will "blow over." I agree. But nothing good will come from our criticism of others, they won't change as quickly as we would like, they won't act according to our standards, and they won't like it when we speak out against them. All that happens, does so within us. We get angry, we allow our frustration level to rise, and we start to be the kind of person we don't want to be because all we can do is speak about the things we don't like in others. Soon we just live out what we are speaking. Let's try to be different in our times of sheltering. Maybe the silence of our shelter will help us see the way we speak evil of others, the politicians, the bosses, the neighbors, etc. Take some time to "dwell in God's tent." Spend a few minutes today thinking about the qualities David lists in this Psalm and ask God to help you make the needed changes in your life so you can be more kind, more just, and treat people in our words and our actions, with mercy and love. I saw a post yesterday that did not give an author and I could not find one on the internet but it says, "There is no perfect life, no perfect job, no perfect childhood, no perfect marriage, and no perfect set of people who will always do what we expect them to do. What we have is a perfect God who is able to lead us through this imperfect life with unfailing strength, incomparable wisdom and infinite love." Join with me in trying a little harder today to imitate God's qualities in all I do and say.
Pastor Edd | 
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