Psalm 119:1-16

It Is Not About Perfection It Is About Direction

I heard a sermon this week on Matthew 7:22-23 “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

In that sermon the preacher said this “It is not about perfection, it is about direction.” From there the Lord led me to this passage of Scripture.

The direction of our heart is of the most important! Keeping score on failures and successes will only lead to misery. We must direct our hearts toward the Lord and His ways! We find that only in the unadulterated Word of God and we see in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ!

After King Asa reformed and they destroyed all their idols Israel entered into a covenant................. 2 Chronicles 15:12, 15 “12 And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;.................And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the Lord gave them rest round about.”

Let’s read the words of Psalmist, who seems to be unknown...........

The seems like a declaration at times, then again the more I read it in some places it reads like a prayer!

I believe this is the right direction if this is the prayer of our hearts!

Heart is mentioned in these verses a few times, whole heart/uprightness of heart. Heart meaning the inward desire of the human. Those verses just mean with no other intention than just to know God and His ways! That is the desire and there is nothing else in the way!

This is the formula for seeking God, it is the direction of the heart, rather than the outward perfection!

I am not saying that this a license to sin. So, many folks (Israelites included) used God’s grace as an occasion for the flesh! They want to sin, they desire to sin!

For example: Have you ever heard someone ask or maybe you have asked: “Is it OK to do this or that? Is this a sin?” From the question it seems that there is some to desire to continue in that sin or to begin in a sin!

The answer to those questions lies in the heart of the one asking: Are you asking to please yourself or to please God?

The direction of the heart! No, I am not going to get it right all the time, but the question is of the heart, what is my desire?

Look at verse 11: Thy Word have I hid (which means to treasure) in my heart, that I might not sin against You! What a prayer, what a heart!

That is the direction!

Notice in verse 14, the writer rejoices in the ways of the Lord as much as all the riches! This is a true heart change, we seek the Lord’s Words and Ways more than riches on the earth.

Turn with me to Jeremiah 17:5-10.......

Israel had turned to relying on the flesh, idolatry, and dishonesty........The Lord had the best for them and they desired the fleshly way over His, His anger was kindled against them.

This is the idea of direction, it is whatever way that the desire of man is directed and as we read in verse 9, the heart is deceitful and desperately (meaning incurable) wicked! This is the heart of the fleshly man!

We must be at a point of changing the direction of our heart! Look at verses 12-14…this is the prayer of Jeremiah, one that lived amongst this wickedness but desired the ways of the Lord!

What a prayer! I can almost here the same desire as I did in Psalm 119! This is a powerful declaration!

Our hearts are bad, born bad.....according to God! If you laid the hearts desire of a human beside the Lord’s desire it would not be similar, at all! This is what the Lord told Jeremiah that the heart is deceitful and wicked to the point it is without cure, yet Jeremiah knew that nothing is impossible with God, so he cries out to heal him, O Lord and I will be healed!

This reminds me of 1 Peter 2:24 “(Jesus) Who His Own Self bare our sins in His Own Body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by Whose stripes ye were healed.”

True healing!! All is needed here is a change of direction!

The Lord is our only cure!

Romans 7:7-25..........God’s law reveals sin to us and the struggle within.........

Paul tells us what God’s law does....it reveals our necessity for God, for without God there is no redemption, no good way period! The law redirects our life!!

Paul says without the truth, the law, he was alive, so it seemed! Without a true understanding of the law, to Paul, at one time, the law was just a set of rules that was to be kept! We treat it that way sometimes!!!!!!!

But when the understanding of the law came, Paul saw the death in him, he saw the incurable wickedness in his heart!

I believe when he truly realized that is when He encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus! He experienced the Only True Law Keeper and also we might as well quote John 1:14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

God’s complete fulfillment of the law is manifest in Jesus Christ!!

When Paul saw Jesus, his inward heart died, sin was revealed to him by the law and it slew him!

A good verse for this is Galatians 3:24 “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

The revelation of our wrongness comes from the law (God), which leads us to the salvation (healing) of hearts by faith in Jesus Christ!!

Now, Paul continues to talk about the struggle within to keep the law.......

Within us there is still a battle, but the difference is now is the direction of desire, I want to do good, I don’t want to do evil, but there is a pull on way or the other! There is no good thing that dwells within us, except for Jesus Christ!!!!

I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, So now with my mind (the new redeemed self) I serve the law, I serve God. The inward man now longs to obey the law of God, but without Jesus Christ this struggle with flesh would definitely be our ruin!

Direction is the answer, to living for God!!! I thought about this young lady, I have spoke of her before. She was a lesbian, living with a woman about to get married and raising a child. She was invited to a Bible study and was preparing in the Bible to defend her right to be gay, because she knew it would be brought up.

Nothing like that happened, they talked about Jesus and all of them spoke as Paul did in Romans 7, O wretched man that I am who shall save me from this body of death!

She left there still curious and kept reading God’s Word, every time not finding anything to support her lifestyle! It condemned her in more ways than just homosexuality!

Just as Paul said, when the commandment came, I died!

Eventually she got to a point to where she realized one thing, that she was lost and from that point she sought after God sorrowfully, then repented, and turned to Jesus Christ her Lord and Savior!!

She said something in that interview that carries so much truth in it! She said: “It isn’t gay to straight, it is lost to saved!”

It is the direction,not perfection! If you are trying to achieve perfection on your own, there is no hope for you and some how, some way, you will wind up following your flesh!!!

Colossians 3:1-4...................In chapter 2, Paul is talking to this church about freedom from legalism, do this or do that!

In these verse Paul is speaking of our freedom in Christ Jesus and if we have that freedom, let us seek the things from the One Who delivered us!

Seek after those things, make the direction of our hearts above where Christ sits at the Right Hand of God!

My life is hid with Christ in God!! When the commandment came I died because of my sins, but now I am hid with Christ, no longer subject to the wrath of God, but now known as a child of God!

Christ is my life, is my direction, because of that when Christ appears in His 2nd coming I will be with Him in Glorious appearing!

It is not perfection but direction!! I will close with Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”