‘I will walk in my house with blameless heart. I will set before my eyes no vile thing.” Psalm 101:2, 3
When first reading these verses, it seems impossible. How can anyone be blameless? We all know that the only blameless person who ever walked the earth was Jesus Christ. So how can we say that we will walk in our houses with blameless hearts? The answer to that is Who I just mentioned: Jesus Christ. Since He is the only One who was ever blameless, it is only through faith in Him that we will be seen as blameless in God’s eyes.
This isn’t just talking about being blameless in our deeds, although that’s impossible enough. This says with blameless heart. The very inner core of who we are. Our thoughts. Our feelings. Everything about us is to be blameless. This isn’t just a façade we can put on when we go in public, either. This says in our homes. In every moment of every day, our every thought will be completely pure.
I’m glad you’re still reading and haven’t given up in frustration. Before we go any further, I want to talk about the irony of David talking about walking in his house with a blameless heart. It is true that it needs to start at home. That’s not what David did, though. He brought sin right into his home and he and his descendants paid for that dearly. Before we enjoy pointing fingers at him too much, how often do we do the same thing? How often do we bring sin right into our homes, into our families? In fact, how many of us are paying the price for parents who did that very thing? And yet God continues to forgive and restore. David’s response to his own sin was to run to God in full repentance, begging for His forgiveness and restoration. Praise God that He’s in the business of making beauty out of ashes!
Just because we’re sure of His forgiveness doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for blamelessness, though. And the following verse gives us a huge clue of how we can do that. By not setting anything vile before our eyes. What does that mean? Well, there are the obvious things like not watching smut or reading trash. But let’s go a bit further. First, let’s redefine “vile.” What if “vile” means anything that takes our focus off of God? I’m not saying we can never think about anything else. After all, we do have lives to lead. But is God included in every part of our lives? Or is He an afterthought, or only for church and Bible studies? An aspect of the word that is translated “vile” is the idea of being worthless. Maybe our thoughts aren’t evil, but do we spend our time in worthless thoughts? If we work to eliminate all the things, little and big, that take our focus away from God, or tempt us to leave Him out of any part of our lives, we will find that we walk more and more closely with Him, allowing Him to shape and mold us into being a little closer to blameless.