"But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue." -Psalm 5:7–9
The Psalms are beautiful in many different ways, one of them being their incredible versatility, their ability to reach multitudes of people in many different life circumstances, yet somehow each person feels completely and individually heard, seen, and loved.
For thousands of years followers of the One True God have not only gotten to know Him through these ancient pages but have been known by Him.
Something about the vulnerability, the passion, the joy, the pain, the angst, the brutal honesty, and the reverence found in the Psalms connects the followers of YHWH, expounding across generations and continents. That work is something only the Spirit of God in us can accomplish.
Today I want to slow down a minute and dwell on only three verses, Psalm 5:7-9. These Scriptures, though your eye could easily gloss over them, contain not only the subtle and ancient hope for the coming of the Messiah, but we also see how that hope was fulfilled later in an extraordinarily unexpected way in Christ, and what that means for us today as disciples.
But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.
David had it in his heart a dream that embedded itself often in his prayers, to "build a house in the name of the LORD my God" (1 Chr. 22:7). Much like Moses never setting foot on the Promised Land, David did not see the temple built during his lifetime. Little did King David know that God had a much larger plan to answer his prayer for a temple, and that was the arrival of another King, the King, and that's King Jesus.
By the bloody and violent death of Christ upon a sinner's cross, by the power of His blood and His incomprehensible love for the sinner (though perhaps His love and His blood are one and the same, as both poured out like a flood on Calvary), a veil was torn that day, the chasm between a holy and set apart God and His beloved children, closed.
By Christ's death (and resurrection!), a new type of temple was enabled to be built, one not made of wood or stone, but in us, the hearts of His believers (may we never fail to be absolutely astounded by this fact). We are His ultimate dwelling place.
So that brings us to this- through the abundance of His steadfast love we will enter His house, and even further, through the abundance of His steadfast love we are able to be His house.
Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me.
I used to gloss over talk of enemies and their destruction in the Psalms because, I thought, I don't really have any enemies. What I was forgetting is that I do have the enemy, who forges ongoing battle in the world around us, but also inside our own minds. Daily we face fear and anxiety and demands inside our own skull- we are a battlefield (precisely why, I believe, Paul in his letters often uses "battle language").
And that is why we pray, lead me, O LORD. We do not come by victory on our own; we are ensured victory in Christ Jesus. "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Rom. 8:37). May each one of us live a life of walking and abiding in our Vine, so that He doesn't make my way straight before me (a road destined for failure and defeat), but that He makes His way straight before me (a road destined for victory. "O death where is your sting?" (1 Cor. 15:55))
For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.
Don't miss the intention behind this language, their throat is an open grave. The grave is where the battles we surrender to the Lord end up because take heart, He has overcome the world, with all the destruction and decay within it. Death could not hold Christ but has more than enough room for death itself. It is not the thoughts inside our head, sleepless nights, or anxious waking hours that have the final word, because Jesus Himself is the Word, the first one, and the last one, the eternal Word.
All through the abundance of Christ's steadfast love for us are we washed white as snow by His blood, and is His Spirit poured out in us. We are justified not on the grounds of our own "good" works, but by His love alone. And that is Good News!
By grace we are living, breathing temples of the living, breathing God. We are more than conquerers; we are deeply loved.
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