December 26 2022

Today, Monday December 26

A Heart of Worship

Psalm 26:1-12 A Psalm of David

“Vindicate me, O LORD, For I have walked in my integrity. I have also trusted in the LORD; I shall not slip.

Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; Try my mind and my heart. For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, And I have walked in Your truth. I have not sat with idolatrous mortals, Nor will I go in with hypocrites. I have hated the assembly of evildoers, And will not sit with the wicked. I will wash my hands in innocence; So I will go about Your altar, O LORD, That I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, And tell of all Your wondrous works. LORD, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells.

Do not gather my soul with sinners, Nor my life with bloodthirsty men, In whose hands is a sinister scheme, And whose right hand is full of bribes. But as for me, I will walk in my integrity; Redeem me and be merciful to me. My foot stands in an even place; In the congregations I will bless the LORD.

How interesting is it that on this 26th day of the month we begin our study on Psalm 26. I’ve mentioned several times in these chats how I read five Psalms every day beginning with the Psalm that corresponds to the day of the month and then read every 30th Psalm. Today my reading will be Psalms 26, 56, 86, 116, and 146. Since there are 150 Psalms this allows me to read the entire book of Psalms every month. As we approach a New Year, I would like to challenge you to do the same and enter a time of worship with the Lord each day in the Sanctuary of the Book of Worship, the Psalms!

Psalms 26, along with Psalm 27 and Psalm 28, reveal David's love for God's sanctuary. You see this in:

Psalm 26:6-8: “I will wash my hands in innocence; So I will go about Your altar, O LORD, That I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, And tell of all Your wondrous works. LORD, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells.”

Psalm 27:4-6: “One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.”

Psalm 28:2: “Hear the voice of my supplications When I cry to You, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.”

In David's day was the tabernacle on Mt. Zion. David had a great desire to build a temple for the LORD in Jerusalem, but God didn't permit David do it because “he was a man of war (2 Samuel 7: 1 Chronicles 22:8-9). But God give him the plans for the temple and helped him accumulate from the spoils of battle great wealth to provide material for constructing the temple (1 Chronicles 22, 28-29).

We know from the title of the Psalm that David wrote it. Some commentators believe that he wrote in on the occasion of a great famine that God sent to punish the nation of Israel for past sins (2 Samuel 21). Others believe it was written when David’s son Absalom was winning the hearts of the people of Israel as he was planning an insurrection against his father. David’s enemies were lying and scheming against him and at the same time showing up for worship at the tabernacle as if they were his fellow worshippers.

David senses that he is surrounded by insincere and hypocritical worshippers and in this Psalm, he is crying out to the Lord to vindicate him. Twice we read that David mentions that he is by God’s grace walking in his integrity. This means he was coming to the tabernacle with a pure heart that was cleansed of sin. David had faith that the Lord had forgiven him of his past sins and sincerely was living a life of obedience in accordance with God’s Word.

In other words, despite the insincerity and hypocrisy of the worshippers around him, David came with a heart of worship that was innocent and pure. May the Lord give us this kind of heart also to worship!

God bless!