Psalm 11 - Do the Righteous Thing

“For the Lord is righteous; He loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold His face.” Psalm 11:7

As we meander through life each day, we are faced with a myriad of choices. And within those choices are choices. You see, within each of our choices lies two clear distinct paths…right and wrong. It’s a lengthy topic for another day, but how do you think mankind inherently knows the difference between the two? If you ever want to assemble an experimental control group on the topic of right and wrong, simply get a bunch of 3-year-olds together. Somehow, someway, God gives them the inherent ability to know the difference between right and wrong. As a toddler walks the floor of the playroom to take the toy of another, they immediately look around to see who’s watching threir errant rebellious behavior. Why would a person fear who is seeing what is right? As adults, we believe that 3-year-old behavior has matured along with our bodies, but not so. Our adult sin seeks the dark, it seeks to do its own will, and it seeks to do it completely out of the sight of our loved ones, our peers, and especially the eyes of Almighty God.

Bad runs from the light, but in Psalm 11:7 we see that good instead runs to the light. How ironic that David pens this poetic song as he is literally on the run. Between Saul and Absalom both seeking to end his life, David spent many years on the run. But as he ran from persecution, he did not run from Godly righteousness. (By the way, righteousness is nothing more than a fancy church word for doing what is right in God’s eyes) And in verse 7, David makes an obvious statement that you wouldn’t think would need to be made or clarified, yet here it is. "for the Lord is righteous." And oh, how the world needs the simplicity and truth of this verse today.

The Lord is righteous. He is love, He is truth, He is right, He is good. In fact, beyond just being good, He is the creator of good. In Genesis 1 as He observed the creation of His universe and all within it, He simply sat back and stated that it was all “very good.” God then made man. Yet because of man’s pride, man sinned against God. And man’s sin nature quickly ran amuck. Man was more willing to serve his own idea of what was right than God’s plan of what was right. Said another way, man’s sin nature allows him to serve himself much better than serving God. But folks, God has not changed since this Psalm was penned, He is still a righteous God that loves righteousness in His children. God loves to see righteousness flow from the hands of those He has redeemed through His Son. God loves to see choices made in the lives of His children that are based on His right, not the mis-directed right that flows from our sin-infested human hearts.

Today, lean heavily into God’s Word and hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God that lies within it. And then simply do what it says. Do the righteous thing that is laid out before you so clearly and succinctly in the truth of God’s Word. For in doing so, God promises a reward that will outshine any other…the upright and rightouess shall one day behold His face. And what a day that will be.

“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” James 4:17

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6

el curioso calico (the curious calico) Val'Quirico, Puebla, Mexico