His Way Is Blameless
I am a big fan of the full armor of God found in Ephesians 6:10-20, but I want to focus on verse sixteen today because in Sunday’s lesson, Psalm 18:30 talked about this shield, and it combines an idea I also like very much.
30 As for God, His way is blameless; The word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.
Psalm 18:30 (NASB)
"where is the light?" by alixroth is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Week eighteen asked “Where Does Your Light Come From?” in the lesson’s title. Psalm 18:30 should answer that question, backed up by Ephesians 6:16. “His way is blameless.” God’s way is blameless, not Man’s way.
Life in the world today is filled with information flying at us faster than at any time in history. We have so many sources vying for our eyeballs, each one more sensational than the last. Each source tries to grab our attention and hold it. Some use wild headlines that can’t possibly be true and often aren’t. Others use images of places they hope we’d like to go to. Others use images of things that regrettably seize our interest, like violence, fear, sexualization of men and women, and other fantastic elements. Many times these statements and images are just not wholesome, but how do we tell? How do we know which ones we can trust and which we cannot?
“His way is blameless.”
Well, that begs the question, “What is His way?” People inside and outside the church do not like the answer to this question because it is convicting. The answer says, “you’re bad and deserve punishment.” Nobody likes to hear they are bad, so they change the message, and by changing the message, they change the outcome. Whether they know they are changing the outcome or not is irrelevant, but in truth, some do know, and some do not know. It is for the individual observer to judge each case, but that judgment doesn’t change the fact that people in the church are changing the message from “His way is blameless” to “We have liberty in Christ, so do as you please.” They are both wrong, and they are right.
They are wrong because our liberty in Christ does not give us free rein to change the message. It does not absolve us from following God’s way. It does not change the fact, the immutable truth that God is right and Man is wrong.
In the Christian world, it is easy to spot the people whose opinions you should discount or avoid. Ask the question, “What is the Bible?” They do not believe the Bible is the unchanging, infallible, divine Word of God.
If you do not get a short, concise answer to the question, “What is the Bible?” if you get a longwinded, detailed, convoluted explanation about how it is “divinely inspired” or “must be taken in context of the times” or “shifts over time as the language shifts” you have your answer. If you hold these opinions respectfully, I submit you are more interested in the World’s opinion of your opinions than you are in God’s opinion of your opinions. The world judges us while we are here. God judges us for the rest of the time beyond the time we are here. Which is longer? Who’s opinion is more important, the one from the other creatures made of dust and clay or the opinion of the One who breathed the breath of life into that dust and clay?
14 “Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
15 “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua 24:14-15 (NASB)