How Can We Hang Out With God?

Psalm 15

A psalm of David.

1 Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?
    Who may live on your holy mountain?

2 The one whose walk is blameless,
    who does what is righteous,
    who speaks the truth from their heart;
3 whose tongue utters no slander,
    who does no wrong to a neighbor,
    and casts no slur on others;
4 who despises a vile person
    but honors those who fear the Lord;
who keeps an oath even when it hurts,
    and does not change their mind;
5 who lends money to the poor without interest;
    who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

Whoever does these things
    will never be shaken.

David starts with a question we all have.  How can I be in God's presence and dwell with Him? What type of person would I need to be? 

There are two ways to interpret this psalm.  First, we could say that none of us are blameless, therefore none of us are worthy to come to God or dwell with him. We have all slandered or gossiped about our neighbor at one time or another in our lives. We have all broken promises.  So, in this sense, no one of us can ascend into God's holy presence or dwell in his tent.  

In the Old Testament this sacred tent was the tabernacle where God's presence dwelled as the people followed Moses in the wilderness. To come into God's presence in the tabernacle, sacrifices had to be made in order to appease God's righteousness.

But in the New Testament we enter into God's presence by the blood of the Lamb, His Son Jesus Christ.  He led into the holy of holies where only the most High Priest could go into once per year.  The veil has been broken between man and God by Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.  So we see the difference between the Law of Moses and the Love of Christ.  

So then what? After we have been made clean through Christ, how should we then live?  The psalm now gives us a guide of what that looks like. It involves what we say, how we treat others, and how we keep our word. The Law of the Lord is good and once we have been made right with God through Christ it is how we get to live.

As David concludes, "The one who does these things will never be shaken."