Climbing the Heights

 January 14, 2021

Psalm 15 led off our Zoom men’s prayer meeting this morning. It was a bit different, sitting in my recliner by the fire, iPad on my lap as we prayed together. Note to Zoomers: singing together is a bit challenging with various rates of signal delay. It sounded like we were being directed by a spastic Orangutan. 

Yesterday I commented on Psalm 73 and how the psalmist despaired at what he saw going on in the world around him...until he came into the house of the Lord and received a much-needed perspective adjustment. In Psalm 15, he begins with “LORD, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?” He then tells us the character traits required of anyone who would venture into the presence of God—walking uprightly, working righteousness, speaking truth in the heart, doing no evil, not charging interest on loans. Every character trait save one has to do with how we treat others. The only internal trait is “speaking truth in the heart.” In other words, before I can have integrity with others, I need it with myself. If I am lying to myself, there is no way I can be truthful with others. 

Such inner truthfulness is harder than we might imagine. As Jeremiah remarked, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) His answer? Only God. 

This creates a problem: If my heart is deceitful and if truth in the inner heart is required to ascend the holy hill of God, how can I possibly come into his presence? Of course, the answer is that we come into the presence of God only on the merits of Jesus Christ who entered the Holy Place “once for all” with his own blood (Hebrews 9:11-28), a full and sufficient sacrifice on our behalf that opens the way for us.

The Psalmist’s use of the phrase “holy hill” intrigues me. We must climb to get to the holy place. We don’t slide our way in; entering requires intention. And it is a hill. Only in the presence of God can we obtain the perspective we need to live in the valley of this world. We live in the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23), and the shadow quickly obscures our path and clouds our vision. If we are to walk in the valley, we need those times when we climb the mountain to see the vistas of eternity that stretch before us. Otherwise, we will easily lose our way, feeling our way through the darkness, wandering in despair. 

So tonight, I cling to the Gospel, the Good News that Christ has entered the presence of the Father who has accepted his offering on our behalf so we can sit with him in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6) and see our way clearly and walk humbly and confidently in this dark and often foreboding world.