Perhaps our current pandemic has caused you to question: what will happen to me after I die? Will I go to heaven? In Psalm 15, David’s desire is to be with God and to dwell with him forever. He lists the required attributes in the remainder of the psalm.
God our Father, we first must praise you for the life of Jesus Christ. He came to this earth and perfectly fulfilled all that is written in Psalm 15, including not doing any harm to us, the people of earth. We are confident that the hope of verse 1, of living with you, will be his reward forever, and we praise you because of this, for surely this is what Jesus deserves.
What we deserve, when we evaluate our lives according to the standard of Psalm 15, is a different story. Yet, in your great mercy, you have decided to treat all of us who have put our trust in Jesus, not according to what we deserve, but according to what Jesus deserves. That is to say, we have the hope of living with you forever because Jesus earned it for us! Hallelujah!
As surely as your grace saves, O Lord, it also transforms us. And so we pray: may Psalm 15 still be a target for us, even though Jesus has secured us a dwelling place with you. Increasingly conform us to the attributes of Psalm 15, the attributes of our savior. We pray this not for the sake of our salvation, but for the sake of our worship. May our righteous lives be an offering of worship to you, our holy and beloved God.
We pray also for those who wrongly hope in their self-righteousness for their salvation. Awaken them to their need for Jesus’ righteousness alone. For those who are certain of their condemnation, let the light of Christ shine on them that they might be saved in him. In Jesus’ name, amen.
