It Starts Small

This morning we are continuing our journey through Psalm 15. In verse 3 we took a holy introspection of our words. We looked at key areas in our heart for unrighteousness: gossiping and slander and harmful actions and words towards our friends and neighbors. When the Lord calls us to pursue righteousness, He tells us to get rid of this.

Today, David writes: despise those who the Lord rejects. I know I had a knee jerk reaction to this verse. Wait, I thought I was supposed to love my neighbor, now I am supposed to despise them? Remember we are doing in introspection of ourselves and not others. David is calling us to look within ourselves at our own heart. Verse three is about our attitudes. He is calling us to look at our own attitudes. The KJV might give us a better clarity:

In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

Psalm 15:3

The word contemned is not one we use in modern day English. It literally means to reject. The Hebrew word used is mā’as and means to reject, despise, refuse. Here is another verse that it is used and I think it makes our understanding a bit stronger to what David is revealing:

And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:

Leviticus 26:15

Our scripture says we need to despise evil to the point it turns us completely towards God. it is not the sinner (to include ourselves) that we are to despise but the sin its self. Why? Because of what sin does. The ultimate goal of sin is to steal our peace and joy, kill our relationships and destroy ourselves. This is why God hates sin. This is why God calls us to hate what he hates. Not people – but the evil that controls their lives that is meant to steal, kill, and destroy.

It means we look at the world and despise it’s philosophy and version of truth that is only lies. When we repent, we come to this place in our lives where we realize everything we know about God, ourselves, others, and the world around us is one great lie. The only truth, absolute truth, comes from God and God alone. He is truth.

If we want to pursue righteousness, we need to stop pursuing worldly vanity and pursue the things of God instead. We do not desire the world, but despise it instead. It deals with the attitude of our heart towards flagrant sin, godliness and ourselves.

Something to contemplate this morning:

When it comes to flagrant sin, the scripture says a man is to despise the life of compromise. Why? It is a life that sits in church on Sunday morning and the rest of the week engages willingly in sin. It is willingness to spiritually compromise one’s life and this man is to despise that sort of living.

Is there compromise in your life that you need to let go of?

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