Psalm 101: Integrity

What is our motivation to follow Jesus, to believe in God, to do what is right and to abstain from what He has called sin? Are we living to get to heaven, to avoid hell, to be blessed? Are we living for a future outcome or from a current reality? Is our relationship with God based on the fear of what He might do or the joy of who He is and what He has done? Motives are important because they reveal the heart behind our actions, but they also determine if our actions, relationships, and character will endure. We can do anything briefly, decide anything quickly, but the things that last, that remain, that produce long term transformation and blessing, they are not just well thought out decisions, they come from rightly motivated hearts. 

Psalm 101 was written by David during his reign as the King of Israel. Much of the psalm talks about David’s leadership, how he will treat both the wicked and the faithful, who he will give favor to and who he will cast away. But the psalm hinges on one very important line found at the end of verse 2, “I will walk with integrity of heart within my house”.  The Hebrew word that we have translated as “integrity” is “tom” which literally means “completeness”.  David was saying that his heart would not be divided, lacking, or hidden. But what is most interesting in the verse is where David chooses to say that he will have integrity. He does not mention his throne, the tabernacle, or his kingdom, he wrote specifically, “I will walk with integrity of heart within my house”. 

To walk in Scripture refers to how we live our daily life. It is not speaking of the great moments, the highs, or the lows, not about our religious activity, or fulfilling our purpose or destiny, it is talking about how we live the mundane, unseen, unnoticed, even the assumed unimportant days of our lives. While we are not sure who said it first, it is often written that integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking. That is basically what David was writing, that he would carefully live his life so that he could rightly lead God’s people. He wrote that he would be careful with his eyes, not looking at anything that is “worthless”; that he would be careful of who he surrounded himself with and what he allowed to get close to his heart. David understood, at least in these moments, that he could not lead from anything he was not living in. 

In the later verses of the psalm David was not being harsh with others in his talk about destroying the wicked, not enduring the arrogant or sending away those who tell lies, he was starting with himself. He was not offended by the sin of others; he was careful and honest with his own. He was not willing to be a hypocrite that preached against what he lived in or that expertly spotted the speck in the eyes of his people but blindly overlooked the plank in his own (Matthew 7:3-5). He started with himself, he focused on his heart, he gave attention to his life; he believed that, as the king, righteousness could not be legislated, it had to be demonstrated. 

This takes us back to the question of motivation. Why were righteousness and integrity important to David? Was his focus on building a perfect or powerful kingdom? Was he trying to win God’s favor so that he could have divine protection from his enemies? Was this David’s version of “give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure, you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38)? Was this a transaction that David was making with God, “I’ll be good if you will bless me”? The beginning of the psalm shows that David’s motivation was not fear of judgment or hope for blessing, he was not doing good to earn God’s favor or God’s love, he was living from the favor and love he was already wrapped in. 

The psalm begins, “I will sing of steadfast love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will make music.” David’s motivation to live in integrity was not fear of God’s judgment, it was the sureness of God’s love. His confidence in God’s heart was what changed his heart and determined how he lived. David was not trying to win favor he was sure of it, he was not trying to avoid punishment he was aware of the blessing that surrounded him, he was not trying to prove himself to God because God had already and always proved Himself to him. 

David did not just sing of God’s love, he added a descriptor to it, he sang of God’s steadfast love. For something to be steadfast it must be solid, secure, immovable, and unchanging. Another descriptor that is often used to translate this particular Hebrew word is loyal. David’s song was not just that God loved him, but that God loved him steadfastly, loyally, securely, that God loved him in a way that could not be influenced by outside forces or manipulated by David’s own efforts. God’s love was settled and so David’s only task was to settle himself in God’s love. 

Our integrity is a result of our view of God’s character, of what we believe about who He is and what He does. In the same way that our hearts are revealed by our words (Luke 6:45) our integrity reveals our beliefs. When we live for love we tend to put pressure upon ourselves to perform, to be perfect, to produce the desired outcome from the one we want to love us, but when we live from love, we are convinced that being loved is not about our effort, our performance, or our ability to keep their heart turned toward us. Living for love is stressful, fearful, and often disappointing, but living from love, is joyful, peaceful, and satisfying to our souls. Living from love protects our hearts from a frantic and often unruly pursuit of pleasure as well as the anxious avoidance of pain. Living from love, confident in love, convinced of the One who loves us frees us too not only be ourselves, but to be like Him. 

That is what David’s song really says, that because of God’s heart of love and life of justice, David could free himself from his effort to be perfect and instead lean in and upon God’s perfection. David could let God change him rather than changing himself for God. David could, as we say at City of Refuge Fellowship so often, live for Jesus by living like Jesus. This was God’s plan from the beginning and it is His desire that will never end. Our salvation is not as strong as our faith, it is as strong as God’s love. It is not something that comes and goes with our decisions or rises and falls with our service, salvation is secure, it is eternal, it is like God, steadfast and good. Listen to how God described the salvation that would be produced by the life, death and resurrection of the Messiah, “I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.” (Jeremiah 32:40). When God sets His love upon us, He does not ever move it, for any reason. But even more, when God casts His love upon us in salvation, He fills us with His Holy Spirit, who keeps our hearts from ever turning from God. That is not just the power and strength of our salvation, it is the integrity of God. He does not revoke that which He has given, and He provides for us so that we cannot give it back. That reality is what changed everything in David’s life. He chose integrity because of God’s integrity. He chose faithfulness because of God’s faithfulness. He chose to love God because God had loved Him, but maybe most of all, He chose to believe that God’s love was steadfast. Rather than worrying that God’s integrity might be as fickle as man’s, David believed that his own integrity could be as secure as God’s. He was motivated by the love God had given, the love that God would not take away, the love that did not just pluck him out of his sin, but that kept him in God’s heart. Today live in love, live from love but we do not need to live for love. God’s love for you is settled, settle into it and let the joy of being loved become the motivation to be changed.