Give order to my life, Lord, because I have walked before you completely and have trusted you and never wavered…. There are wicked schemes in their hands; in their right hands are bribes. But I have walked before you with my whole heart; be gracious to me and redeem me. Psalm 26:1, 10-11 (author’s translation)
This psalm does a good job of laying to rest two false ideas. The first idea is that Christians can never live thoroughly clean, completely committed lives. According to this thought, we can never be free of the sinful disposition with which all humans are born. Therefore, we can never be free from sinful behavior. Neither can we behave in ways that are completely pleasing to God. This being so, (second wrong idea) anyone who claims that they have been enabled by the Holy Spirit to live lives that are completely obedient to God is either a liar or deluded, and worse than that, they think that their holy behavior (walk) somehow contributes to their saved condition.
This psalm denies those ideas. It builds off of Genesis 17:1 where God tells Abraham that if he, Abraham, will walk before God he will become whole, i.e., he will become all that a human being was designed to be. The psalmist claims that this promise has become the truth of his life.
What Good News! We can live in constant experience of heavenly love and can live in ways that mirror God’s complete dependability (v. 3). We don’t have to live lives that are filled with lies and broken promises. We can continually enjoy the presence of God and live lives that are full of gratitude and praise, lifting up hands that are clean (vv. 6-8). But is the psalmist not saying that his good behavior has earned him a place with God? No! He came to this place of being wholly obedient as a result of redemptive grace and only remains there because of redemptive grace (v. 11). Living a life that is wholly God’s is not in any way a cause of redemption; it is a result of redemption, but it is the promised result, one that can be expected. Good News!
Called To Be Transformed 