Here is a game plan for holiness from the psalmist's example (from Psalm 119).
1. RUN AWAY FROM SIN! (Psalm 119:37). Fighting sin demands a holy resolve to flee and forsake its temptations. The psalmist begs with God to pass his eyes over, to turn his eyes away from sin. The heart of the psalmist reveals a desire to follow God and this shows itself in a fear of indulging sin. Every child of God must strive to emulate the psalmist’s example. We must seek the Lord and His power to turn away from sin. And therein rests the hope. You can’t do this on your own. You cannot fight sin nor turn away from sin in your own human strength. See how the psalmist pleads with God to literally ‘cause his eyes to turn away/pass by’ sin. He recognizes that sin is ‘vanity.’ The Hebrew word is emptiness, vanity, worthlessness. How amazing that a child of God understands that sin promises a lot but delivers nothing. Sin promises pleasure but provides pain. Let our hearts burn with a prayerful determination to run away from sin and its temptations even from the very first instance.
2) RUN HARD TO SCRIPTURE! (Psalm 119:38). How important for every believer to run hard to God and to His Truth. Amazingly, sheer willpower to flee sin is a noble desire but it’s still insufficient to produce real, lasting change. One must replace that temptation to sin with a greater pursuit of godliness. And here, the psalmist recognizes that he must be established, yes he must stand firm, in the Word of God. How about you? When you are tempted (with your eyes, your mouth, your lips, your heart, your mind, your body), do you actively seek Christ’s Truth as your great shield, protection and joy? If you are to follow and glorify God in a life-pursuit of holy living, yes you must run from sin but you must run to Truth. And bless God, He has provided all that is needed in His promises, in His Word, in His Scriptures. The particular word that the psalmist uses here refers to the ‘utterances from the mouth of God.’ What a great concept. Run away from sin and hard hard to the sweet utterances of Almighty God as revealed in His Word.
3) RUN DEEP IN CHRIST! (Psalm 119:39-40). The psalmist prays that he longs for God’s precepts and he recognizes the need for God to revive him in the Word. He needs revival. He needs God to come, to invade, to revive, to quicken, to satisfy him again — in the perfect righteousness of God. Oh Christian, can you relate? Do you need heart-reviving? Do you need God to revive you and give you fresh life? Do you need fresh reminders of Christ’s righteousness to sweep over your soul again so that you remember your position, rest in His grace, and rejoice in His security? Run deep in Christ’s righteousness. Run deep in prayer seeking true revival. May the Lord help us with this game-plan for holiness. We must RUN AWAY from sin. And with that we must HARD HARD to Scripture. And that must propel us to RUN DEEP in Christ and in His heart-reviving work!
