The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god. They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob. (Psalm 24:1-6)
This psalm starts with a reminder to us that the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. This is God’s world, He is the owner. We are in it because He created us to be in it. We often forget this is God’s world and He has plans for us and for this world.
Seeing this is God’s world, where can we go and meet with Him?
It’s like going to where the head of your country lives and wanting to be ushered into his or her presence to meet with them.
The psalmist uses the imagery of God being on a mountain, although in reality, God is everywhere, as we saw in the post about Psalm 139.
Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord, the place where God is, and stand in His holy presence?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.
Note it doesn’t say, if you are a priest, or if you are good enough, if you have paid to see me or if you are famous.
There are four criteria to who can stand in God’s presence, two about the state of our hands and heart, and two about our behaviour as it relates to God.
Clean hands and a pure heart refers to being without wrongdoing, without guilt, without selfishness, without pride, without what the Bible refers to as sin. It refers to being holy like God is holy to be able to be in His presence.
We read in Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
None of us have clean hands and a pure heart. Based on our own merit we are not able to stand in God’s holy place, in His presence, because we are not pure enough.
God knows this and did something about it because He wants to meet with us. He provides a way for us to have our hands cleaned and our heart purified.
There is only one way for our sin to be removed, and that is by death.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)
God has a gift to give you, if you will believe and receive it. If we ask Him to, God will remove all of our wrongdoing, guilt, selfishness, pride, all of our sin. When Jesus, God’s Son, came to earth, he became our substitute and paid the penalty of our sin, he died in our place, before rising again to life. In exchange for our sin, God gives us external life and a state of being without sin (righteousness).
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
In order to have clean hands and a pure heart, we need to personally accept what Jesus did for us.
In order to stand in God’s holy presence, we also need to not trust in an idol or swear by a false god…what does this mean?
An idol is anything that we turn to, place value in, depend on or worship in place of God. In reality, our life is full of idols. God wants us to identify them, turn from them, and remove them from being idols in our life, because He is able to meet all of our needs that we turn to idols to meet.
Swearing by a false god refers to putting our trust and confidence in something other than God. We tend to put our trust and confidence in ourselves, in others, in things. God wants us to put our trust and confidence in Him rather than substitutes because He is completely true, constant, consistent and trustworthy.
God is a jealous God and wants our full attention. We will not be accepted into His presence if we are hanging on or clinging to other things in place of God.
We can’t come into God’s presence if we don’t genuinely believe He exists and we are prepared to leave everything else at the door, so to speak, to meet with Him.
People who believe God exists, accept the exchange of sin for righteousness from Jesus, and turn from all idols and gods…they are the ones who enter God’s presence.
In God’s presence you will experience blessing – favour, acceptance, goodness – from God and vindication – you are cleared of all blame, wrongdoing, sin – and you will experience total forgiveness and reinstatement of clean hands and a pure heart. When God sees you, he sees you as being holy and righteous. You have freedom to be in His presence, to communicate with God and Him with you, to experience the indwelling presence of God within you and to embark on an awesome journey of doing life together with God.
Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob.
It is possible for us humans to stand in God’s holy presence. We don’t have to wait until we die, we can meet with God now, here on earth. There is only one way.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
Being in God’s presence is totally awesome and amazing, it is something I frequently experience. God is so awesome, He wants to have a close relationship with us and has provided the way for it to happen. You too can meet with God if you are prepared to meet His requirements to come into His presence.
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