Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Information, Imitation
- Information: This is the initial phase of become a disciple of Jesus. Before we can do anything meaningful we must begin to understand what we are doing. We may never gain full understanding of God and His ways, but God calls us to study Him, His Son, and His ways as the foundation of being His follower.
- Imitation: This is the second over-arching step of the discipleship process. First we gain information, then we imitate our spiritual mentor. Imitation leads to innovation of spirituality in our own life.
Today I’m
going to go in reverse order. If we look
at psalm 16 first, what we hear sounds at first like a typical message from the
psalmist. We hear a person who needs God’s
protection. We hear about a person who
needs to be lifted up in God’s presence.
At first blush it sounds like a typical psalm that we’ve been reading
over the past few days.
However, in
this psalm we get a deeper insight into how it happens. It begins by the Lord’s instruction. He makes known the path of life. He gives me counsel. He instructs me. Walking with the Lord begins by learning from
the Lord what it is like to do so. It
begins with information from Him. It
begins with His Word, His instruction, His ways. It starts with us as human beings humbling
ourselves to His information about true life.
Then we
get to Psalm 15. Psalm 15 takes this
information and moves it to the next step. This psalm takes it to the level of
imitation. Once we know about the Lord’s
ways, we need to imitate God. Who will
inhabit God’s holy hill?
- Those who imitate God.
- Those who walk blamelessly with their Lord.
- Those who do what is right.
- Those who speak truth.
- Those who do not slander.
- Those who do not harbor evil against their neighbor.
- Those who despise evil.
- Those who do not reproach a friend.
- Those who do not fall into the corruption of the love of money.
That
sounds like people who imitate God to me.
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