Aggressive Blamelessness

I’m not sure you’re ready for this! I don’t think you can handle it! You’re not tough enough! Sorry, but I’m just being real! My guess is, you’re just not up to it!

I hate to admit it, but, me neither. I wish that weren’t the case—I pray, literally, that this sad admission will not be the case for long. I pray that God will transform my heart, and yours, too, so you and I can truly offer this kind of psalm to the Lord.

What I am talking about is total purity of course. That is the subject of this psalm. And my opening admission is not making excuses for you and me, it is simply stating our current reality—a reality that desperately needs to change since only those with pure hearts, clean hands, honest tongues and transformed minds will experience the fullness of God. Aggressive blamelessness—that’s what this psalm is describing.

The psalmist was committed to that kind of aggressive blamelessness—not just in theory, like you and me—but in the reality of his everyday life. Perhaps you would disagree with my assessment of your weak commitment and failure to practice that kind of aggressive blamelessness. Okay, so how do you stack up against these different arenas where the palmist is calling for intense purity:

In your thought life (Psalm 101:3): Have you banned all wickedness from entering your mind through what you watch or think about?

In your relationships (Psalm 101:4): Have you deliberately distanced yourself unabashedly from sinful people?

In your conversations (Psalm 101:5): Do you cut off dialogue with those who fudge the truth and traffic in rumors, gossip, innuendo and negativity?

In your tolerance levels (Psalm 101:5): Do you find unacceptable and intolerable those whose attitudes are uppity, arrogant, and prideful?

Yeah, me neither!

Here’s the deal: Let’s ask the Lord to help us get aggressively blameless. And we can put feet to our prayers by joining the psalmist in surrounding ourselves with others of likeminded purity (Psalm 101:6), distancing ourselves from the dishonest (Psalm 101:7) and actively, aggressively and vocally challenging those who live in opposition to the values of heaven (Psalm 101:8).

You may not win a lot of friends with this new, aggressive approach to blameless living, but you will be pleasing to God.

Of course, there will be those who will accuse me of promoting a works-oriented approach to holiness; of trying to earn the righteousness that has been purchased by Christ’s blood.  I get that.  But I’m not talking about our positional holiness, I’m speaking of the practical blameless—the effort we’ve been called to give to work out our salvation through the practice of our everyday faith.

I think it’s time to make blamelessness more than a theory.

“Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.”
~Jean de la Fontaine