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Singing Psalm 24 to embrace purity

curved mountain range amid the sea

Singing Psalm 24 draws your eyes to look up to the limitless repository of the triune God and be sufficiently humbled to embrace purity of mind, heart, and body. He is the origin. It’s not Mother Nature. It is vital that we acknowledge it is the Lord God, Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit, who established stable land for man to live out of the turbulent waters of the sea.


“For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship” ~ Paul on the open sea in Acts 27:23


“The earth and its riches that in it are stored,

The world and its dwellers belong to the LORD.” ~ Psalm 24:1


Are you a dweller in the world?


If so, then you belong to the Lord. And if you belong to the Lord it follows that you worship him.


You embrace purity of mind, heart, and body as you worship.


“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” ~ Romans 12:1-2


The triune God conceived life, created it, brings it forth, sustains it, redeems it, and and uses even something as awful as death, to transform it into eternal life. Do you believe this? If so, your peace is sweet.


“O who can the path to the LORD’s mount ascend?

    And who in the place of his holiness stand?

The man of pure heart and of hands without stain,

    Who swears not to idols nor worships what’s vain.” ~ Psalm 24:3-4


How can you who belong to him who is the origin of all things, the King of glory, ascend to his holy path?


The Holy Spirit opens your eyes to understand and obey his Word. With your great King in view, you desire to embrace purity of mind, heart, and body. You no longer trust in idols seeking what is vain.


He is your glory as you glory in the strength he gives your mind, heart, and body to embrace purity in full allegiance to him.


You are ascending on his path to his mountaintop. By his holiness you embrace purity. He makes it so you are no longer weighed down by your burdens. He calls you to cast them onto the Lord, come to him, and travel with him from peak to peak.


Singing Psalm 24 you embrace purity of mind

"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." ~ 2 Corinthians 10:4-5


You belong to the winner of the battle and the war. There is no reason to cling to a fear of losing when you embrace purity of mind and take every thought as a prisoner to obey not self but Christ.


The walls that have been erected to keep God out so that you wouldn’t embrace purity of mind have been broken down in Christ.


You embrace purity of mind regarding the concept of race.


Your race is determined by who you seek. The blessed race is made up of those embrace purity of mind, who seek God’s face. Those who neither embrace purity of mind nor seek God’s face make up the race that is not blessed.


Those who look to God gain righteousness from him. He is the origin not only of your existence, your being, but also your right standing before him is in purity of mind, a frame of total dependence on him.


Singing Psalm 24 causes you to embrace purity of mind around a new, countercultural definition of race.


Rather than only one human race or a multitude of races based on ethnicity, there are in actuality two races: his people and not his people.


We all started out not his people, but Jesus opened up the way for all who would trust him to become his people.


“Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” ~ 1 Peter 2:10


“Yes, he from the LORD shall a blessing obtain,

    And from God his Savior he’ll righteousness gain.

Thus looking to Him is a whole blessed race;

    All those who, like Jacob, are seeking Your face.” ~ Psalm 24:5-6


Being righteous, contrary to popular belief, is not based on what you do. Whew! What a relief. If you could somehow pull off thinking that you are righteous, that would be called self-righteousness. In his great mercy, God deems you righteous, not by what you look like, but when you look to him, dependent on him for everything.


So counter-intuitive! So wonderful! So freeing! This is what he does that is more than all you could ask or imagine that leads you to embrace purity of mind.


Singing Psalm 24 you embrace purity of heart

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” ~ Matthew 5:8


“He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.” ~ Proverbs 22:11


“The great King of glory to enter draws nigh!” ~ Psalm 24:7


The blessing goes to those who like Jacob, are seeking his face, looking to the triune God for their reward. Jacob wrestled with God to embrace purity of heart. He transformed from independent deceiver to dependent devotee.


Paul and those with him commended themselves for many things before the Corinthians, but to embrace purity of heart in their affection for them is highlighted as central. This gave them the credibility to call the church there to open wide their hearts also and not restrict their affection for Paul.


“We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open.” ~ 2 Corinthians 6:11


“To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.” ~ Titus 1:15


You embrace purity of heart when you refuse to let in words and images that would taint your mind and vision of the one to whom you belong, the one you can count on wanting to be with you even if no one else does. It seems this motivated Job to make a covenant with his eyes so that he would embrace purity and not lust in his heart. Just the thought of seeing the cesspool for what it is, and rejecting it for clear, still waters is the comfort of all comforts.


The gates that have been barriers to keep God out so that you fail to embrace purity of heart have been lifted in Christ.


Singing Psalm 24 you embrace purity of body

You stand at the foot of the mountain, look up, and stand in awe. You embrace purity of body as you marvel at what God’s hands have formed.


His ocean has many tributaries to fill the lakes of those who look to him.


Marvel of marvels, the origin of all things is also your daddy who is rich in goodness. He made you in his image and is making you rich in goodness too. 150 times this great King of glory tells you in song that you belong to him, that he draws near to you, and that he loves you.


“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


Being that God cares so much for you and meets your every need of body and soul to overflowing, what will you do to embrace purity with the overflow?


“Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” ~ 1 Corinthians 9:25-27


Paul instructed Timothy to embrace purity and to encourage others to do so as well:

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity…Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.” ~ 1 Timothy 4:12, 5:2


Where can you go to embrace purity of body?


You can go to the cross and to God’s Word.


“Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” ~ Hebrews 13:13-16


Where can you learn how to embrace purity of body by not neglecting to do good, sharing what you have, and sacrificing in ways that please God?


“How can a young man keep his way pure?

    By guarding it according to your word.

With my whole heart I seek you;

    let me not wander from your commandments!

I have stored up your word in my heart,

    that I might not sin against you.” ~ Psalm 119:9-11


“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” ~ 1 Timothy 3:16-17


Listening to, reading, and meditating upon God’s Word will ensure that your labor in the Lord will not be in vain as you wait for an imperishable body that can no longer sin and will no longer need to be trained by God’s Word. 


Over time your body will be well trained to embrace purity. If at this time you find yourself single, you learn to live with an undivided devotion to the Lord to whom you are married. If at this time you are in a covenant of marriage, you keep the marriage bed pure knowing you are married first to the Lord.


“Jesus said to them, ‘Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.’” ~ Mark 12:24-25


The ancient doors that have been locked to keep God out, so that you make idols of one another and fail to embrace purity of body, have been opened in Christ.


“Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, 58


You will struggle to embrace purity of body now. There are moments when every fiber of your being will resist it. Yet you persevere, daily denying yourself until one day it will be as natural to embrace purity of body as it is for our King, Lord, and Savior, Jesus, who along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is forever to be praised!


“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” ~ Philippians 3:20-21


The level of excitement and desire to embrace purity of mind, heart, and body when singing Psalm 24 builds to end on a crescendo. You stand in wonder that in every battle of your life, the Lord is near, that with you in the trenches, the Lord is here!


“O who is the King that in glory draws near?

The LORD, mighty LORD, of the battle is here!

O gates, lift your heads! Ancient doors, lift them high!

The great King of glory to enter draws nigh!

“O gates, lift your heads! Ancient doors, lift them high!

The great King of glory to enter draws nigh!

This great King of glory, O who can He be?

The LORD God of hosts, King of glory is He!” ~ Psalm 24:7-10



May 12-19, 2023

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