The Freedom of an Upright Heart
Psalm 119:7-8 I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous ordinances. I will observe your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.
If shame is something that ruins our lives, then the opposite of that, is a good heart. A sound heart. A clear conscience.
You know what it’s like. When you do something that you know is wrong, your conscience eats away at you. It just does. God put it there fore a reason. It’s that part of us, made as we are in the image of God, that helps us turn our ways back to Him.
When our conscience is troubled, it robs us of peace, it robs us of joy and more often than not, it robs us of sleep. And that’s why, living our lives God’s way, is the best way. Really.
Most people think, and honestly this is how I used to think too, that if you become a Christian, you have to live by this set of rigid rules … and that’s going to narrow your life somehow. It’s going to rob you of being able to do all the things you want to do.
But actually, the exact opposite is true:
I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous ordinances. I will observe your statutes; do not utterly forsake me. (Psalm 119:7-8)
When we discover the right way to live; good, wholesome, pure, gentle, kind, loving, generous, sacrificial, loyal, honest – all the qualities we admire in other people, all of a sudden we’re living with a clear conscience. And that clear conscience is where we discover the freedom that Jesus came to bring us.
God describes Himself as our Father. In fact, Jesus used the word “Abba” which means “Dad”. And He’s a good Father. The best. All He wants is the best for you and me. And what I’ve discovered, is that there are actually very few things about which He says to us, “don’t do them”.
Go back to Adam and Eve. There were doubtless thousands of fruit-bearing trees in the garden. There was only one of which God said, “don’t eat from this one” because He knew it would be bad for them. They would discover the difference between good and evil … why? How? Because their conscience would convict them of their wrongdoing.
You and I, we know when we’ve done something wrong. And that sense of guilt ruins everything. Everything! What God wants for you is to be free to worship Him, to live in freedom, with an upright heart. With a clear conscience.
I will praise you with an upright heart. When? When I learn His righteous ordinances.
When I learn to live in goodness and light, rather than in evil and darkness.
And the place where we discover how to do that, the place where we get the knowledge and the wisdom and the power to live for Him, is in the Bible. That amazing love letter that He’s preserved down through the ages.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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