28/10/2010 - HOW DAVID’S VICTORIOUS LIFE WAS LIKE

• 
• 
• 
• 

Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight. (Psalm 18:24)

In the previous verses of this psalm David numbers the many attitudes that turned his life into a chain of victories. He said such actions caused the Lord to recompense him according to his righteousness and the cleanness of his hands in the eyes of the Father.

What an example to follow! You had better do the same, with the same virtues, thus you shall also be rewarded in this life and in eternity; after all, what matters is to please God.

Our righteousness must not be exercised to be hailed by men, but secretly, when only the Lord sees us (Matthew 6:4-18). Whoever practices righteousness to gain acknowledgement and praise of society receives in advance a lesser reward, if compared to what he would have on the Great Day. So why exchange what the Most High will give to all his servants for what man offers? The human acknowledgement is transient, the divine is everlasting.

Dear brothers and sisters, your righteousness is what you do with your faith. When you pray, fight, determine and strive to get what you have learned in the Word of God, you exercise justice and demand your rights. But do not do it with impure hands or with a purpose that differs from God\’s purposes. Do not let yourself be carried away by shady motives because only the Holy Spirit should guide you. Shun feelings of greed, dishonest gain or personal interest when carrying out the will of God (Titus 1:7-11). Instead, doing what pleases the Lord is the only thing that should motivate you. In doing so, your work will be pleasing to Him, and by no means will you lose your reward.

The sacred writer said that his hands were clean in the sight of the Lord. We cannot deem ourselves clean just based on our own point of view. Our vision is limited and as such we can be utterly wrong about our motives (Proverbs 3:7; 16:25). However, if we do God’s work with cleanness of hands in the eyes of the Almighty no attack of the enemy will tarnish our achievement.

The psalmist, however, said that for his hands to be clean he had to keep the ways of the Lord. He who does so will also have the same cleanness. He said he did not depart wickedly from the Lord and that if he did something wrong, he did not do it intentionally. In fact, when someone falls into sin because of being unwary but repents right afterwards, he resumes his fellowship. Anyhow, the problem is when the person is warned and in spite of it he gets carried away by temptation and falls.

David also said the secret to victory was always to have the judgments of God before his eyes and never depart from His precepts. He was righteous before the Most High and shunned wickedness, therefore he was rewarded.

In Christ with love,

R. R. Soares